Gallery exhibition will showcase works by Marjorie Ruddy
Jan 26, 2010 - 09:50 AM
By Parvaneh Pessian
WHITBY -- The name Marjorie Ruddy might not strike a chord with many Whitby residents today, but the once well-known photographer played a key role in the town's history.
The Whitby Archives is seeking information from anyone who may have known Ms. Ruddy during her years spent in the town from the time she moved here in 1917 at age nine, to her death in 1980 at age 72.
"We've got some information about her but we're looking for a lot more," said town archivist Brian Winter, encouraging people to come forward and share their stories with him.
The information will be compiled into a detailed catalogue to be featured in an upcoming exhibition being held in the fall in celebration of the Whitby Station Gallery's 40th anniversary.
The event will mark the first time any of her work has ever been displayed to the public in such a fashion and it's worth gathering as many facts as possible for a complete biography, Mr. Winter said.
"The Station Gallery is for showing artwork, and photography is art, but it's very seldom that we get any exhibits on the history of Whitby so this is something very important."
Ms. Ruddy became a commercial photographer in Whitby in the early 1930s. Some of her first photos were of an inquest into the death of Douglas Brown, who was hit by a train at Whitby junction station -- the original site of the Station Gallery.
She began writing for local newspapers in Oshawa and Whitby in 1930 and went on to write for the Globe (Toronto), The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Daily Star, the Oshawa Daily Times and the Whitby Gazette and Chronicle.
Her photo of the swearing in of Judge Dilly Benjamin Coleman, published in The Globe in 1936, was the first ever taken in a courtroom while court was in session.
"She was the only commercial photographer in Whitby in the 1930s and 1940s and that fact that she was a woman photographer was unusual for that time period," Mr. Winter said.
In October 1946, Ms. Ruddy opened a photography studio in downtown Whitby at 143 Brock St. where she worked until her retirement in 1960.
A collection of 3,370 negatives of her photographs turned up at a photography dealer in Kingston, Ont. in 2004. The negatives, from photographs taken between 1935 to 1945, were purchased by the Whitby Archives, resulting in the largest photography collection it has ever acquired.
The gallery exhibition is expected to open to the public on Sept. 4 and continue until Oct. 17, offering a look at about 50 of Ms. Ruddy's photographs from 1935 to 1948.
Call: Mr. Winter at 905-668-6531 ext. 2022
E-mail: bwinter@whitbylibrary.on.ca
Recommend :