ABSTRACT
Sidney Carter (1880-1956) and the Politics of
Pictorialism
David Calvin Strong
1994
Pictorialism, a fine art movement in photography, first
emerged in Western Europe, and quickly spread to North America, around the turn of the
century. The career of Sidney Robert Carter (Toronto 1880 -1956 Montreal), a leading
proponent of the movement in Canada, provides a window onto the Canadian experience, and
furnishes an opportunity for the consideration of the particular nature of cultural
transmission, specifically, the notion of the "international" art movement and
its reception in colonial cultures.
Pictorialists distanced themselves from both commercial
photographers and the established camera club circuit, and sought out more prestigious
alignments within the larger art milieu. In this thesis Carter's career as a Pictorialist
is traced, beginning with his ambivalent relationship with the Toronto Camera Club,
proceeding through his election to the Photo-Secession, his attempts to organize a
parallel group of photographers in Canada, and culminating in his organization of an
international exhibition of pictorial photographs in Montreal in 1907.
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