The Lost City
“For the first time, a Beaverbrook Art Gallery touring exhibition opens in Saint John – and for good reason. Seventy-five black-and-white photographs drawn from the artist’s exceptional archive are presented, depicting 1960s life along Main Street in the city’s North End before ‘urban renewal.’ Poignant and sublime, these narrative photographs are among the finest visual documents of social conditions and urban life ever taken in Canada. Following the Saint John presentation, the work will tour to Fredericton and beyond.”
Curated by John Leroux and organized by the Beaverbrook Art Gallery.
Acknowledgements & Thanks
Presented with the support of Commercial Properties Limited
The artist acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
L’artist remercie le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.
The artist would also like to acknowledge funding support from the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario)
From publisher Goose Lane Editions: “For The Lost City: Ian MacEachern’s Photographs of Saint John, architectural and social historian John Leroux has selected seventy-five black-and-white photographs drawn from MacEachern’s exceptional archive and written an accompanying essay that examines the recent history of Saint John and the effect of urban renewal on civic architecture, historic neighbourhoods, and community structure.”
The author and artist will be in attendance and copies will be available for purchase onsite through Handworks Gallery, who represent Mr. MacEachern.
Biography
Ian MacEachern was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, in 1942.
He worked as a TV cameraman in Sydney and Moncton and, in 1962, moved to Saint John to work for CHSJ-TV. Soon after, he began taking photographs in his spare time. Prompted by the many fires and impending urban renewal, his camera turned to documenting the changing face of the city in the mid 1960s.
In 1966, MacEachern moved to Toronto where he worked as a freelance photojournalist for various magazines. While in Toronto, he photographed at the Mental Hospital at 999 Queen Street for Chatelaine Magazine, and also did stills for a show on poverty in Toronto’s Cabbagetown for CBC-TV. In 1967 he was hired as a studio cameraman for CBC Toronto.
MacEachern moved to London, Ontario in 1968 to continue freelance photography as a magazine and industrial photojournalist. He also taught photography at H. B. Beal Secondary School, Fanshawe Community College, and The University of Western Ontario. Ian lives in London, Ontario.
Ian MacEachern’s photographs have been published in ArtsCanada, Chatelaine, Maclean’s, Quest, Saturday Night, Canadian Star Weekly, Time Canada, Ontario Living and London Magazine. He was the principal photographer for Symbols of Aspiration; Victorian Architecture in London and Southwestern Ontario, an exhibition and book published by University of Toronto Press in 1986.
Ian MacEachern has had several one-man shows in Canada and the United States as well as various group exhibitions. His photographs are in the permanent collection of the McIntosh Gallery at The University of Western Ontario and in several private collections.