The Uno Langmann BC Historical Photograph Digital Collection, consisting of over 15,300 photographs and postcards, is being used in ARTH 443 Issues and Problems in Canadian Art and Photography: Photo Fever and the Uno Langmann Archive, taught by John O’Brian from the Department of Art History.The seminar in Canadian art aims to critically think about how photographs and archives raise questions about how memory functions. The Uno Langmann collection includes extensive coverage of B.C. from the 1850s to the 1950s and includes photographs in a wide variety of formats and genres including albums, diaries, portraits, landscapes and city/townscapes.

Wishing the class a successful semester!

Indian group at Lytton. [1867-1868?]. Uno Langmann collection.

The Never Sweat Tunnel Company. [1867-1868?]. Uno Langmann collection.

The Hamilton family. [1867-1868?]. Uno Langmann collection.

Colonial Hotel, Soda Creek. [1867-1868?]. Uno Langmann collection.

ARTH 443 Course Description:

Some of the classes for the seminar take place looking at historical photographs in Rare Books and Special Collections. The purpose is to think through photography and the archive in tandem. Photographs and archives both raise troubling questions about how memory functions. Are they a force for knowing and remembering or a force for forgetting and disavowal? Do they help to reveal reality or do they serve to flatten knowledge of the past? How should we understand the Internet as an archive and the place of photography in it? Because ARTH 443 is a seminar in Canadian art and photography, attention is paid to Canadian images and texts where relevant.

About the Uno Langmann BC Historical Photograph Collection:

The digital collection is a subset of The Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs, donated by Uno and Dianne Langmann and Uno Langmann Limited, which consists of more than 18,000 rare and unique early photographs from the 1850s to the 1970s. It is considered the premiere private collection of early provincial photos, and an important illustrated history of early photographic methods.

Images from the collection are being digitized on an ongoing basis and will be available for viewing on the Library’s website. Library users will be able to request items from the collection through UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections.