Notman: Montreal

William Notman Dept: A Scottish immigrant who arrived in Montreal in 1856 harbouring a secret, Notman became the first Canadian photographer of international renown. His subjects ranged from royalty, Governors General and the Fathers of Confederation, to Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Anna of Anna and the King of Siam fame. His studio immortalized the faces of the merchant princes of Montreal's legendary Square Mile - the Molsons, Redpaths, Drummonds, Allans, and Van Hornes. He didn't only portray them and their families, but also their ornate habitats, recording the lavish trappings of the high-Victorian era: the conservatories, coffered ceilings, vast fireplaces and portraitdecked walls, according to Montreal Gazette. By 1860, four years after his arrival in Canada, Notman had a team of artists and apprentices working for him, so that after that date his insignia on a photo didn't necessarily mean that he was the one behind the camera. Yet there was a distinctive Notman style and vision, no matter who the actual photographer was. Stanley Triggs, a 20th-century curator who rescued the Notman name from oblivion and is the author of several books about him, characterized this style as simple, direct and stately. Triggs has written that Notman "imbued his subjects with an aura of greatness equal to the challenge of the raw new world." If you've ever seen vintage PHOTOS of Victorian Montreal and its citizens, there's a good chance those landmarks and faces were captured by the lens of William Notman. And as for those evocative 19th-century Montreal winter scenes - ice jams, pirouetting skaters, tobogganers whooshing down hillsides - they, too, were the work of his studio. But Notman was much more than a society photographer. A rare combination of artist and shrewd businessman, he kept his rates modest enough for ordinary individuals to sit for him. And he went out of his way to invite into his studio people whose trade, garb, or features caught his eye: a Jewish herb doctor with his basket, for instance, or a mustachioed carter sporting a buffalo fur coat tied with a ceinture fl ch e. Sometimes he took their pictures for free, at others he paid them a fee. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.