Photography

The National Gallery of Canada’s photography collection is one of the world’s most comprehensive holdings of photographs and related materials. It represents the entire history of the medium, revealing and reinterpreting the most important stories of our past, present and future.

In 2015, a generous donation from Scotiabank supported and enhanced collecting and outreach activities. The Scotiabank Photography Program at the National Gallery of Canada embraces digital content creation, education, exhibitions, and the New Generation Photography Award, which recognizes outstanding work in photographic and lens-based arts by Canadians 35 and under. 

The Gallery has been actively collecting photographs since 1967, thanks to the prescience of then-Director Jean Sutherland Boggs and Curator of Photographs James Borcoman, who recognized photography’s growing importance to art history.

Now encompassing more than 50,000 photographs and 146,000 negatives, the collection contains significant holdings by some of photography’s key practitioners, including William Henry Fox Talbot, Charles Nègre, P.H. Emerson, Hill and Adamson, Frederick H. Evans, Josef Sudek, Walker Evans, Lisette Model, Leon Levinstein, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Lynne Cohen, Arnaud Maggs and Mark Ruwedel. Also represented is a fine collection of European and American daguerreotypes, and rare 19th-century war photographs.

The Gallery’s photography collection also comprises the complete holdings of the former Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP), spanning nearly sixty years, from the early 1950s to 2009. Originating in the National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division, the CMCP collection features some of the best documentary and art photography ever produced by Canadian artists and photographers. It also includes an extensive collection of negatives and transparencies generated during government assignments documenting a critical period in the country’s history, from the 1960s to the mid-1980s.

As well, the Gallery’s photography holdings include photographs associated with photojournalism, such as the Photo League and 19th-century images of conflict from the Crimean War, the 1860 China War, the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. Recent donations of major collections of news photographs related to the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War have enhanced the collection’s representation of 20th-century conflict. This expansion of photojournalism, as well as images of a vernacular nature, encourages interdisciplinary research and scholarship into the intellectual history of the photographic image.

The National Gallery of Canada's photography collection is widely respected, as are its groundbreaking exhibitions and stellar publications, including Beauty of Another Order: Photography in Science, Oscar G. Rejlander: Artist Photographer and Photography in Canada, 1960-2000.

Collection

Curatorial Team

Andrea Kunard.

Andrea Kunard
Senior Curator of Photographs

Andrea Kunard (PhD Queen’s University 2004) curates, researches and publishes on historical and contemporary Canadian photography.  Exhibitions include Shifting Sites (2000), Susan McEachern: Structures of Meaning (2004), Steeling the Gaze (2008), Scott McFarland: A Cultivated View (2009), Fred Herzog (2011), Clash: Conflict and Its Consequences (2012), Michel Campeau: Icons of Obsolescence (2013), Photography in Canada 1960-2000 (2017) and Moyra Davey: The Faithful (2020). Collaborations on exhibitions include those with Charles Hill on the historical photography component of Artists, Architects and Artisans: Canadian Art 1890-1918 (2013); with Terry Graff (Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton) on Jaret Belliveau: Dominion Street (2014); with Susan Gibson Garvey (former director of the Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax) on Marlene Creates — Places, Paths, and Pauses (2017); and with Sophie Hackett (Art Gallery of Ontario) and Urs Stahel (La Fondazione MAST, Bologna) on Anthropocene (2018), which showcased the photographs of Ed Burtynsky and the films of Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier. Virtual exhibits include Photostories Canada which focuses on the National Film Board of Canada, Still Photography Division collection. Kunard has taught photo history, Canadian art and cultural theory at Carleton and Queen's University, and lectured on photography throughout Canada. Co-editor of The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada (McGill Queen’s U.P. 2008), she has also published articles on contemporary and historical photography in Photography: Crisis of History, Joan Fontcuberta, ed. (Barcelona: Actar, 2004), The Disappearance of Darkness: Photography at the End of the Analog Era (Princeton Architectural Press: Ryerson Image Centre, 2013), National Gallery of Canada Review, (University of Toronto Press), The Journal of Canadian Art History, the International Journal of Canadian Studies, and Early Popular Visual Culture.

Photo Blog

Explore the art of photography from the medium’s earliest days to cutting-edge contemporary techniques, through fascinating stories inspired by works in the national photography collection.

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Yamamoto Masao, # 280 (from the series A Box of Ku), 1987–2018 (printed in 1994), gelatin silver print with hand-applied ink, 11.1 x 17.3 cm, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa © Yamamoto Masao, courtesy Stephen Bulger Gallery. Photo: NGC

Yamamoto Masao, # 280 (from the series A Box of Ku), 1987–2018 (printed in 1994), gelatin silver print with hand-applied ink.

latt D. Babbitt, Niagara Falls from Prospect Point, Daguerreotype.

Viewing
Room

Take a closer look at a selection of historical photography from the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. Use the zoom feature to explore details not easily seen by the naked eye, and activate hotspots to learn more.

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Exhibitions and publications

1969-1989

1990-1999

2000-2009

2010-2019

2020-

  • I Confess by Moyra Davey, Andrea Kunard and Dalie Giroux (catalogue, 2020)

Featured Content

Gordon Parks Department Store, Mobile, Alabama, 1956, printed 2021 Ink jet print
Magazine

Gordon Parks and Photographing America

"Department Store, Mobile, Alabama" by Black American photographer Gordon Parks is an icon of mid-20th-century photography, a window into the fabric of mid-century American society.
October 27, 2021
Augusta Mostyn Detail of  Oak Tree in Eridge Park in Sussex before 1857 Albumen silver print
Your Collection

The Old Oak Tree: Augusta Mostyn

An early pioneer photographer, Augusta Mostyn is credited with opening one of the first galleries dedicated to art made by women.
January 15, 2021
Paul Strand, Fox River, Gaspé, 1936, printed later. Gelatin silver print.
Your Collection

Paul Strand and Canada: Travels to the Gaspé Peninsula

Photographer Paul Strand visited Canada at least five times, travelling twice to the Gaspé Peninsula and creating images that record his change of style.
December 17, 2020
Your Collection

Stephen Waddell and Visualizing the World

Saturated with references to photography and art history, Stephen Waddell’s images are documents of fleeting moments in mid-narrative.
October 29, 2020
Your Collection

A Pastor's Pastures: the Hatfield Rectory Album

The Hatfield Rectory album of photographs is an intimate record of the family of Reverend Faithfull and their life at the parsonage at Hatfield in England.
January 17, 2020
Exhibitions

Japan in Transition: 20th-Century Photography from Kimura to Morimura

Through the lens of 28 photographers, the images in the current "Hanran" exhibition reflect the profound changes that occurred in Japan during the Shōwa era.
October 9, 2019

Find out more

Metaphors and imagination: Sophie Ristelhueber's "WB" series / September 5, 2019
Focus on the Collection: Yamamoto Masao / November 13, 2019
Life in Norfolk: Photographs by Peter Henry Emerson / August 23, 2019
A Speculative Process: Reading Jayce Salloum’s Mute Pictures / August 14, 2019
Focus on the Collection: Sammy Baloji / July 24, 2019
From Monochrome to Colour: Dave Heath's Photographs and Slide Tape Presentations / June 26, 2019
Solitude and Connection: Dave Heath's Universal Expression / March 13, 2019
People of New York: the photography of Leon Levinstein / January 25, 2019
History and Identity: Althea Thauberger's "L’arbre est dans ses feuilles" / October 19, 2018
Oscar Rejlander and the beginning of art photography / October 17, 2018
Human-altered Landscapes: Visions of the Anthropocene / September 26, 2018
Dark Side of the Moon: Forensic Analysis of Lewis M. Rutherfurd's "Moon" / August 21, 2018
Universal experiences and the aesthetic eye: images by Donald Buchanan / July 3, 2018
Candid but kind: the photographic world of Lisette Model / June 15, 2018
Work by one of the most important photographers of the 20th century is gifted to Canadian Photography Institute / January 24, 2018
Don’t Take My Kodachrome Away — A Review of Fred Herzog: Modern Color / October 17, 2017
Lady Aberdeen's Memorial Photobook to her Son: An Elegy in Visual Form / February 6, 2019
Unwinding Time: Clocks for Seeing at the Art Gallery of Alberta / March 1, 2017
Photo-reportage no 407A Une fierté nationale : Le Canada a atteint en 1965 la première place pour son standard de vie

Photostories Canada

The virtual exhibition which tells us fascinating stories about Canada

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Supported by

Scotiabank Photography Program