Arnaud Maggs wins Governor General's Award

Arnaud Maggs, known to the magazine world as a fine photographer, is being honoured with a Governor General's Award for Visual and Media Arts for his second career. Maggs was a Toronto photographer well known for the most striking magazine fashion shoots and portraiture in the 1970s who then reinvented himself with even more striking artworks, based on photography, but which explored systems and classifications of colour.

He was a noted portrait photographer in the 1970s, taking shots of Irving Layton and Northrop Frye. His work was carried in most major magazines of the time.

Then he became fascinated with systems of identification, beginning with mug shots, he says. "I use systems of identification as an underlying spine in all my work. Imposing this structure frees me to explore territories I never would have imagined," he says in an artist's statement. Maggs turned his artist's eye to the mug shot in 48 Views, taking pictures of Canadian artists, writers and musicians, but with the face turned so the viewer has a new perception. "I began to photograph 19th-century documents. I wanted to capture the underlying system in them," he says, explaining his transition from photographing people to objects such as the pages of documents or hotel signs.

His most recent show, Nomenclature, at the Robert McLaughlin Gallery in Oshawa, is an exploration of classifications of colour.

The awards, which are administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, will be made by Governor General Michaelle Jean at Rideau Hall on March 22. In addition to a $15,000 prize, the winners will be presented with original artworks created by Saskatchewan wood turner Michael Hosaluk, winner of the 2005 Saidye Bronfman Award in Fine Crafts.