Background
William Notman was born on March 8, 1826, in Renfrewshire, United Kingdom.
William Notman was born on March 8, 1826, in Renfrewshire, United Kingdom.
William Notman quickly established a flourishing professional photography studio on Bleury Street, a location close to Montreal's central commercial district. His first important commission was the documentation of the construction of the Victoria Bridge across the St. Lawrence River. The Bridge opened with great fanfare in 1860, attended by the Prince of Wales.
The first Canadian photographer with an international reputation, William Notman's status, and the business grew over the next three decades. He established branches throughout Canada and the United States, including seasonal branches at Yale and Harvard universities to cater to the student trade. He was also an active member of the Montreal artistic community, opening his studio for exhibitions by local painters. William Notman was highly regarded by his colleagues for his innovative photography and held patents for some of the techniques he developed to recreate winter within the studio walls. He won medals at exhibitions in Montreal, London, Paris, and Australia.
William Notman was a regular contributor to the photographic journal Philadelphia Photographer and in partnership with its editor, Edward Wilson, formed the Centennial Photographic Company for the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, held in honor of the 100th anniversary of the United States in 1876. He won the only gold medal to be awarded by the British judges and the portrait identification card required for entrance to the grounds was the ancestor of today's various photo-ID cards.
When William Notman died suddenly in November 1891 after a short bout of pneumonia, management of the studio Wm Notman & Son was left to his son William McFarlane Notman, an experienced photographer in his own right, who with his brothers, had accompanied the itinerant settlement known as "End of Track" for the Canadian Pacific Railway and documented the completion of the railway in Western Canada.