Photographer Arnaud Maggs dies, aged 86

Robertson Davies by Arnaud Maggs

The well-known Toronto photographer Arnaud Maggs, who did a lot of magazine portrait work in the 1970s  and early 1980s before turning to more abstract and far-reaching art, has died at 86. 

This year he was given a major retrospective of his work at the National Gallery in Ottawa and won the $50,000 Scotiabank Photography Prize; according to a story by Martin Knelman in the Toronto Star, there will be a solo Maggs exhibit at the 2013 edition of the Contact photography festival and a book published of his images. 

Maggs was a graphic designer and commercial fashion photographer before moving into more editorial magazine work. 

"Maggs achieved popularity and acclaim for his signature portrait series, in which multiple images of a famous subject — such as artist Joseph Beuys and critic Northrop Frye — were presented in unsmiling, grid-like arrangements."

At right, above, is Maggs' portrait of author and Master of Massey College Robertson Davies, published in The City magazine, October 1977