Gallery celebrates four decades of Horst Ehricht's photojournalism

David Lewis & Tommy Douglas
photo: Horst Ehricht

In an era when most mobile phones have a camera, it is possible to forget that great photojournalism is more than point-and-click. It can result in moving, amazing works of art. Case in point is the show Photography: Horst Ehricht, May 28 to June 21 at the John B. Aird Gallery in Toronto. 

Ehricht was, among other things, director of photography at Maclean's magazine from 1965 to 1972 and a prolific freelancer for publications ranging from Time, Life and Sports Illustrated to The City (Toronto Sunday Star) , Reader's Digest and Chatelaine. 

"In a career spanning over four decades, award-winning photojournalist Ehricht took tens of thousands of photos that appeared in leading newspapers and magazines throughout North America and Europe," said a release from the gallery]. The Aird exhibition focuses on four key themes in this body of work: Kensington Market in the 1950s; Homesteading in Alberta in the 1960s; the 1967 Detroit Riots; and Politicians and Personalities. From Lester Pearson to Oscar Peterson and Marshall McLuhan to Bobby Hull, this last category includes some of the biggest names ever to emerge from Canada."

Ehricht studied photography at Ryerson Polytechnic, graduating in 1955 to work as a freelancer. In 1991, the National Archives of Canada acquired Ehricht's entire collection of works in black & white -- 450,000 of them. He won the lifetime achievement award of the Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators (CAPIC) that same year.