Don’t miss the chance to visit Stories from the Picture Press
Stories from the Picture Press highlights lesser-known moments and photographers from the peak of photojournalism in the 20th century. Pictured here: Hilmar Pabel, Untitled [Youngsters protesting after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by five countries of the Warsaw Pact (the USSR, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany, and Poland), Prague, Czechoslovakia], 1968, gelatin silver print. The Black Star Collection,The Image Centre
In 2005 The Image Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University was gifted over 300,000 photos from the Black Star photo agency, a prolific photojournalism agency that took and distributed images for press purposes over the course of 80 years. Known around TMU as The Black Star Collection, the photographs represent major moments from the 20th century. They provide a literal snapshot of the people, places, events and culture from around the world during that period.
To celebrate this immense collection and the contributions that were made by photojournalists in the 20th century, The Image Centre created a free exhibit called Stories from the Picture Press, a collection of 35 visual stories that roll-out in approximate chronological order. The intention with Stories from the Picture Press is to showcase some of the lesser-known images and stories from the vast Black Star collection alongside photo stories from the Canadian Press, Canada’s national news agency. Moments on display range from England’s suffrage movement for women in the early 1900s to Quebec’s Oka Crisis in 1990.
“With this show, we’re able to bring attention back to these stories from history by focusing especially on the role of photography,” said Paul Roth, director of The Image Centre and co-curator of the exhibition.
Preserving stories and personalities
Dora Kallmus (known as Madame d’Ora), Untitled [Spanish/Argentinian dancer Antonia Mercé y Luque, known as La Argentina, Paris, France], 1925–1927, gelatin silver print. The Black Star Collection, The Image Centre
One of Roth’s favourite stories from the exhibit, Madame d’Ora (pictured above), illustrates how the photo agency functioned. For example, they provided publicity photos and operated as a central repository for images from around the world.
“La Argentina was an enormous star who toured the globe as a Spanish dancer and is not well-known anymore,” he said. “The photos of her in Black Star not only allow us to showcase how the picture agency helped performers with promotion, but the fact that they're preserved means stories and personalities can live on long after their cultural moment has ended.”
While The Image Centre has widely promoted the Black Star collection in the past, this is the first exhibit that the centre has done about the photo agency specifically. The show explains how the pictures were gathered together, and how they were used. Roth says Stories from the Picture Press is designed to be crowd pleasing and an entertaining way to explore the 20th century.
“The collection is a great treasure of the university,” Roth added when explaining why the TMU community should experience the exhibit. “It is a chance to see something that is ours, that TMU is preserving for future generations.”
Sponsored by BlogTO and the Toronto Star, Stories from the Picture Press re-opened on January 17 and runs until April 6, 2024. There are three new exhibitions on view as well: Otherworldly: Deborah Turbeville Photographs (external link) , Alexis Cordesse: Talashi (external link) , and Brittany Newlove: What Should I Say? (external link)
For more information on Stories from the Picture Press and the other exhibits, visit The Image Centre website (external link) .