To visit this section, you need the following plugin(s):
A Strong, Personal Gaze
A pioneer of photography, William Notman is able to sum people up in seconds.Transcription
Narrator
The eyes stare back at you, clear and strong. They are the eyes of a man who can sum you up in seconds — for that is all he has, when you come into his studio to have your likeness taken. His name is William Notman and he wants to be a successful businessman, an ambition he achieves with ease. But he is more than this: He is also an historian, and some say a magician. One of the first of a new breed: He is a photographer.
Roger Hall, Historian, University of Western Ontario
Roger Hall
He was a photographer, he was a scientist, he was an aesthete, but he was also a businessman. And all of those things combined in one character.
Lilly Koltun, Director, Portrait Gallery of Canada
Lilly Koltun
What made him good, I think, is that he was able to apply what we would almost consider a modern sensibility to the world around him.
Dennis Reid, Chief Curator, Art Gallery of Ontario
Dennis Reid
He was an instance of an early photographer who clearly was figuring out what photography can mean, as a form of artistic expression, as a form of social chronicling, as a way of creating a sense of status -- all the kinds of things that have flowed from works of art from time immemorial. He was trying to find ways to invest in photography.