Around the time that American photographers like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore were awakening the art world to the merits of colour images, Fred Herzog was quietly doing much the same in Canada. Born in Germany in 1930, Herzog immigrated to Canada in 1952, eventually settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. He worked as a medical photographer from 1957 to 1990, but all the while was recording life on the streets on Vancouver and neighbouring areas. As with the renowned American photographer Walker Evans, Herzog was fascinated with subject matter that contained strong graphic elements such as store signage, shop windows and automobiles. His acute colour sensibilities and sense of composition put him in the same company as the great “New Colour” photographers of the twentieth century.
