Selected Reviews from After Notman Exhibitions And
The Gazette, Montreal, Saturday, September 6, 2003, Weekender section Quebec - Lifestyle and Travel Magazine Number 4: September- October 2004 La Presse, Montreal, Wednesday, November 14, 2003 Hundred years in Montreal by Nicolas Bérubé translated by Anna Rau For three years, photographer Andrzej Maciejewski wandered through the streets of Montreal, following steps of William Notman. He applied himself to re-take the same photographs as the ones taken by Montreal photographer on the turn of the last century. The result is a moving and unique journey through the time, a testimony of changes that the city went through during last hundred years. Hundred years ago, the tallest sky-scraper of Montreal, was seven storeys. Rue Sainte-Catherine with electric lines running through the tops of wooden posts, supplying power for the tramways, the carriages, the gentlemen wearing high hats and ladies with umbrellas. In winter, the smoke from coal furnaces darkened the sky and the snow was hand-shoveled in the streets. The everyday life of the metropolis at the turn of century, had been immortalized by William Notman, a pioneer of photography in our country. Notman, who lived with his family at the intersection of rue Sherbrooke and Clark, in the large house, which bears his name today, left more than 400 000 archival photographs, taken by him and his collaborators all over the country. Thirty of the Montreal photographs have been actualized by photographer Andrzej Maciejewski, who is currently exhibiting his fascinating diptychs at the McCord Museum. Maciejewski followed Notman's steps with scrupulousness of a monk: the same corner of the street, the same hour, the same frame.
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