Famed Vancouver photographer Fred Herzog has been honoured with his own stamp.
The stamp was created from one of his photographs, depicting a group of children playing out front of an old grocery store in 1960. Today, that location – at West 5th Avenue in Vancouver – is just an empty warehouse; but in 1960, Bogner’s Grocery was part of a far more vibrant community.
Like most of Herzog’s work, the image is a time capsule, capturing working class people interacting with the city around them. Herzog’s Vancouver is often filled with corporate signage and other aspects of the burgeoning consumer culture of the ‘50s and ‘60s
Herzog is one of seven Canadian photographers being honoured in stamp form by Canada Post. And seven iconic photographs have been selected as result, with the help of archivists, museum curators and experts across the country.
The other BC photographer featured in the series is C.D. Hoy, a Chinese immigrant whose photographs documented the cultural diversity of the Cariboo region between 1909 and 1920.
Hoy’s stamp, “Unidentified Chinese Man”, portrays a man sitting down in a fancy suit, smoking a cigar. It was likely taken while Hoy was working as a farmhand.
Other artists include Edward Burtynsky, Lynne Cohen, Michel Lambeth, William Notman and Louis-Prudent Valley.
Herzog, now 83 and still a resident Vancouver, immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1952. Fascinated by American culture, he set out to document it, shooting in Kodachrome slide film and capturing his subjects in full colour, at a time when most photographers shot in black and white.
While relatively obscure at the time, His work has become far more recognized and has appeared in numerous books and galleries, including a full retrospective at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2007.
Herzog and Hoy will be domestic 85-cent stamps.
