Background
Robert Joseph Flaherty was born in 1884 in Iron Mountain, Michigan, United States.
Robert Joseph Flaherty was born in 1884 in Iron Mountain, Michigan, United States.
He studied at Upper Canada College, Toronto, and the Michigan College of Mines.
Flaherty first worked with his father, searching out iron deposits in Canada for the U.S. Steel Corp., and also worked in a Michigan iron mine. He then spent two years exploring the Canadian wilds before finding expedition sponsorship from Sir William Mackenzie, builder of the Canadian Northern Railroad. During expeditions from 1910 to 1916, Flaherty mapped the Baffin Land, northern Ungava and the Belcher's Island areas. In appreciation, Canada named one of the islands after Flaherty. In 1920-21 he filmed Eskimo life, under the sponsorship of the fur company Revillon Frères, which resulted in his first documentary film, Nanook of the North. Flaherty continued to make films and photograph native peoples until his death.
Acknowledged as the father of the documentary,'Flaherty produced, wrote and directed the following films: Louisiana Story, 1948; The Land, 1942; Elephant Boy, 1937; Man of Aran, 1934; Tabu and Industrial Britain, 1933; White Shadows of the South Seas, 1928; The Twenty- Four Dollar Island, 1927; Moana, 1926; The Pottery-Maker, 1925; Nanook of the North, 1922.
His still photographs, like his films, are powerful documents of the struggle of primitive peoples against the hostile forces of nature.
PUBLICATIONS Monographs: Nanook of the North, Robert Kraus, ed., 1971; Robert Joseph Flaherty, Présentation, Henri Agel, 1965 (Seghers: Paris); Robert Flaherty, Wolfgang Klane, ed., 1964 (Henschelverlag: Berlin); The Innocent Eye, P. Rotha & B. Wright, 1963 (Allen: London); The Odyssey of a Film-Maker: Robert Flaherty’s Story, Frances Flaherty, 1960, repr. 1972 (Arno Press).
