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Fred Herzog
Photographer
Vancouver, BC, Canada
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Born in Germany
migrated to Canada (Vancouver) in 1953
Since 1953, he has produced a substantial body of photos, taking urban life in Vancouver second hand shops, vacant lots, neon signage and the crowd of people, who have populated the city’s streets over 50 years, as his primary subject.
Fred has self-consciously drawn open documentary traditions in photography, while incorporating something of an outsider’s idiosyncratic sensitivity to a new environment into his work. Within his images, bodily gesture, the detritus of consumer culture and the architecture of the streets take on a heightened resonance, as the impact of modernity becomes visible in the everyday life of the city.
Much of Herzog’s work was produced on Kodachrome slide film. His use of color was unusual in the 1950 and 60s, when artistic photography was almost exclusively associated with black and white imagery. In this respect, his photos could be seen as pre-figuration of the “New Color” of photographers such as “Stephen Shore” and “William Eggleston”, which received wide spread acclaim in the 1970s, and the works of contemporary Vancouver photographer such as “Roy Arden”, Arni Haraldsson” “Karin Bubas” and “Christos Dikeakos”.
Fred Herzog has been active in Vancouver’s art scene for more than forty years, while working as a medical photographer from 1957 to 1990. During that time, he has participated in group exhibitions at “The National Gallery of Canada”, Presentation House Gallery”, Vancouver Art Gallery” and “UBC Fine Arts Gallery”. January 25 to May 13, 2007 exhibition in Vancouver Art Gallery, was the first to examine Herzog’s overall body of work and it is accompanied by a fully illustrated book co-published by Douglas & Mclntyre.
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