Photo exhibit offers unique view of the city
Historical pics date back to the early 1950s and reach into the early 1990s
Dick Oulton did a little bit of everything to pay the bills.
“He was a working commercial photographer,” said Diane Evans, of the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver. “He did whatever came in the door” — whether it was taking beauty shots of aspiring models, architectural photos of restaurant interiors or shots of big watermelons at the B.C. Fruit Growers’ Association annual convention.
In 1953, he photographed the construction of the Kemano generating station on the north coast. In 1958, he shot the winners of the George Matthews Fantasy Award at the B.C. Hairdressers Association convention. In 1967, he snapped Diana Ross and the Supremes at the totem poles in Stanley Park.
Working from the early 1950s to the early 1990s, Oulton quietly documented the changing city and province.
“It’s a bit of the history of Vancouver,” said Evans. “I love looking at how people have changed. Nobody looks like that anymore, the hairstyles, the way they dress.”
The Polygon owns Oulton’s archive, and mounted an acclaimed show of his work in 2008, when the gallery was known as Presentation House. Last year the gallery moved into a stunning new building, just east of Lonsdale Quay on the North Vancouver waterfront.
Now the gallery has picked another 150 Oulton photos for a new exhibit, Dick Oulton Studios Ltd.: Wedding — Color — Portraits.
The show is the debut for a new wing of the Polygon, the Chan Family Gallery, which is set in a beautiful waterfront location on the main floor.
“(The space) was going to be a rental area,” explained Evans. “We’re not doing that, so we’re using it as a gallery.”
The new space is already a success. People were dropping by when the show was being hung last week.
“A few people have come in,” said Evans. “We had made a mistake, we thought (the photos of ) Kemano (were of ) Kitimat. An elderly gentleman came in and took one look at it and said ‘That’s Kemano.’
“We were like ‘No,’ and he said ‘Yeah, I lived there.’ So he told us the whole history of the construction of the tunnels. He knew everything and I had to change my text panel. It was wonderful.”
The Kemano photos are quite striking. Evans blew up one photo of the interior of the power house that’s filled with giant cylinders and orbs. If you didn’t know better you’d think it was a mad scientist’s laboratory in a 1930s science fiction movie.
“I had the eight-by-10 (print) and I scanned it,” said Evans. “I didn’t even notice the men (in the photo) until I got the blow-up.”
The Kemano photos are just east of an assortment of pictures from the fruit growers’ association. A mystery woman seems to be everywhere, holding various pieces of fruit.
“I love her, she’s in all the photographs,” said Evans. “Miss Fruit and Vegetables.”
There are several groups of photos, including glamour shots and weddings, beauty contestants and bodybuilders, architecture and the Kemano facility, the fruit growers, and the hairdresser conventions.
Information on the photos is scant, which made creating the show “like putting together a puzzle.”
Oulton worked and lived in the Innis-Thompson building at 518 West Hastings for four decades. But he went into a seniors home after suffering a fall around 1994, when the building was slated to be demolished.
After some people broke in and trashed his office, throwing his photos and negatives on the floor, photographer Lincoln Clarkes, who knew Oulton, decided to salvage what he could.
“It was a really heavy-duty, dramatic crystal meth squatter scene,” Clarkes said. “I gave them money and gave them pot and whiskey or whatever it was ... I think it was a huge 40-ouncer of vodka. They just left us alone for a while and we managed to get as much as we could.”
The archive eventually found its way to Presentation House, but is so big they’ve only scratched the surface of what it holds.
“I think we have 10 boxes of negatives, and we haven’t even gone through them,” said Evans. “I just went through the prints (for this show).”
But what prints they are — women with hairdos from outer space, 1950s cafes with U-shaped counters and chrome mini-jukeboxes, a series of colour shots of a typical suburban family in 1964.
“I’m hoping people will come in and recognize people,” said Evans. “We’d love to find out where Dean’s Cafe is, or the Sportsmen’s Cafe.”
Both cafes are long gone, but thanks to Oulton’s photos, live again at the Polygon.
It’s a bit of a history of Vancouver. I love looking at how people have changed. Nobody looks like that anymore.