Geoffrey James (photographer)

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Geoffrey James
Born1942 (1942)
St. Asaph, Wales
NationalityCanadian
Known forphotographer
SpouseJessica Bradley

Geoffrey James RCA (born 1942)[1] is a Canadian photographer, living in Montreal. His black-and-white panoramic landscapes deal with nature's spaces and the changes wrought by society in both in its more idealized creations as in formal gardens and its darker side as in the asbestos mining landscape.[2] His aims are two-fold, both Utopia and Dystopia. (Utopia/Dystopia was the title of his book/catalogue and retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa in 2008). In 2016, he was appointed the first Photo Laureate of Toronto by Mayor John Tory.[3]

Life and work[edit]

James was born in St. Asaph, Wales and attended Wellington College, Berkshire, and Wadham College, Oxford, where he received a degree (modern history) in 1964. He is self-taught as a photographer, starting in 1965, the same year as he moved to Philadelphia and got a job as a reporter for the Philadelphia Bulletin.[2] He moved to Canada in 1966, where he was an associate editor of Time magazine in Montreal (1967–1975) and head of the Visual Arts, film and Video section of the Canada Council, Ottawa (1975–1982).[2] From 1982 to 1984 James was a visiting professor at the University of Ottawa.[2][4]

Between 1987 and 2002, he used large-format and panoramic film cameras to record landscape that has felt the impact of human activity. The earlier work examined idealized landscapes of formal gardens followed by an exploration of asbestos mining sites and the US/Mexico border fence in southern California.[5][6] In the 2000s he followed with examinations of suburban and urban landscape.[7] A retrospective of his work, Utopia/Dystopia: The Photographs of Geoffrey James was exhibited by the National Gallery of Canada in 2008. James has said of photography:

"There's a kind of truism now in art, that you know, all good art is political. I'm not sure that's true. I think my work deals with the real world and it deals sometimes with social problems but I've absolutely no delusions about the power of art to change peoples minds. I think the least effective way of effecting social change is to take photographs".[8]

Selected publications[edit]

James works in series and much of his photography is available in over a dozen monographs and catalogues. Some of these are the following:

  • James, Geoffrey (1991). La Campagna Romana / Geoffrey James. Montreal: Éditions Galerie René Blouin. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • James, Geoffrey (1991). The Italian garden / photographs by Geoffrey James. New York: H. N. Abrams. ISBN 0810934566. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • Viewing Olmsted / photographs by Robert Burley, Lee Friedlander and Geoffrey James. Montréal: Centre canadien d'architecture = Canadian Centre for Architecture (edited with a prologue by Phyllis Lambert). 1996. ISBN 0920785581. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • Running fence : Geoffrey James. North Vancouver: Presentation House Gallery. 1999. ISBN 092029345X. Retrieved 24 April 2024. (essays by Elizabeth Armstrong, Sebastian Rotella, Dot Tuer);
  • Damisch, Hubert (2001). Paris: Photographs by Geoffrey James. Paris, Fr.: Services culturels de l'Ambassade du Canada. ISBN 1896940218. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • Jansma, Linda (2001). Geoffrey James; Parks and Walkways of Oshawa. Oshawa: Robert McLaughlin Gallery. ISBN 0921500416. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • Wiebe, Rudy (2002). Place : Lethbridge, a city on the prairie. Vancouver ; Toronto: Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 1550549316. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • Geoffrey James: Past/Present/Future. Toronto: University of Toronto Art Centre in cooperation with The University of Toronto's Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design. 2003. ISBN 0-7727-0652-2. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • Young, Brian (2003). Respectable burial : Montreal's Mount Royal Cemetery. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 0773525297.;
  • Toronto / Geoffrey James. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. 2006. ISBN 9781553652069. Retrieved 24 April 2024. (introduction by Mark Kingwell);
  • Pauli, Lori (2008). Utopia/Dystopia : Geoffrey James. Ottawa and Vancouver: National Gallery of Canada: Douglas & McIntyre. ISBN 9781553653479. Retrieved 24 April 2024.(essays by Stephen Bann and Britt Salvesen);
  • James, Geoffrey (2008). Field notes / Geoffrey James. Kitchener: Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery. ISBN 9780978266998. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • James, Geoffrey (2014). Inside Kingston Penitentiary (1835-2013). London, Eng.: Black Dog Publishing. ISBN 9781908966766. Retrieved 24 April 2024.;
  • Residue : the persistence of the real. London, England and Vancouver, BC: : Black Dog Publishing and Vancouver Art Gallery. 2015. ISBN 1910433268. Retrieved 24 April 2024.

Selected exhibitions[edit]

In 1971, James began exhibiting his work publicly. His first solo was at Sir George Williams University (now Concordia University in Montreal. He had many solo shows afterwards, both nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at NSCAD (1983), at the University of Kent, England (1985), the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa (1986), The Power Plant, Toronto (1993), the Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Ontario (2001), a retrospective at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario (2008), and at the Oregon Centre for the Photographic Arts, Portland, Oregon (2010).[9] In 2022, he had an exhibition titled Wanderlust: Around the World in 80 Photographs at Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto.[10]

His group shows at both public and private galleries are numerous. His work was included in exhibitions starting in 1977 with 13 Canadian Photographers, Madison Art Center, Madison, Wisconsin and included afterwards in shows in such places as Paris, France (1987), Budapest, Hungary (1987), New York (1987, at the MoMA in 1996 and 2009), Los Angeles (1990, 1991, 1996)), Kassel, Germany (1992), Naples, Italy (1994), at the Canadian Centre for Architecture Montreal, Quebec (1996, 2000), and National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (1998, 2007, 2012), and elsewhere.[9] He is represented by Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, Alberta; Equinox Gallery in Vancouver[11] and Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto.

Selected works in public collections[edit]

Honours[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g "Geoffrey James". Meet the Artist. National Gallery of Canada. Archived from the original on 17 October 2013. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d "Collection". www.gallery.ca. National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved 22 April 2024.
  3. ^ a b "Article". www.gallerieswest.ca. Galleries West Magazine, 2016. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  4. ^ "Geoffrey James". Canadian Photographic Portfolio Society. Archived from the original on 22 March 2014. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  5. ^ Kozinska, Dorota (2008). "Utopia/Dystopia: The Photographs of Geoffrey James". Vie Des Arts. 52 (212): 18–19. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  6. ^ "Geoffrey James: The Landscape and the Camera". Canadian Art. Canadian Art Foundation. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  7. ^ "Article". canadianart.ca. Canadian Art. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  8. ^ "Geoffrey James – Clip 5" (PDF). Meet the Artist. National Gallery of Canada. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 13 September 2013.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Geoffrey James c.v., Trépanier Baer Gallery, Calgary, Alberta.
  10. ^ "Exhibitions". www.bulgergallery.com. Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  11. ^ "Artists". www.equinoxgallery.com. Equinox Gallery, Van. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  12. ^ "Collection". agnes.queensu.ca. Agnes Etherington Art Centre. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
  13. ^ "Collection". macrepertoire.macm.org. MAC. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
  14. ^ "Collection". www.moma.org/. MoMA, New York. Retrieved 23 April 2024.
  15. ^ "Collection". www.wag.ca. Winipeg Art Gallery. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
  16. ^ "Prizes". Canada Council. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
  17. ^ "Recipients". iskowitzfoundation.ca. Gershon Iskowitz Foundation Prize. Retrieved 24 April 2024.
  18. ^ "Members since 1880". Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Archived from the original on 26 May 2011. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  19. ^ "Recipients". Governor General of Canada. Retrieved 22 April 2024.

External links[edit]

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