Abstract

Pictorialism, a fine art movement in photography, first emerged in western Europe, and quickly spread to North America, around the turn of the century. The career of Sidney Robert Carter (Toronto 1880-1956 Montreal), a leading proponent of the movement in Canada, provides a window onto the Canadian experience, and furnishes an opportunity for the consideration of the particular nature of cultural transmission, specifically, the notion of the "international" art movement and its reception in colonial cultures. Pictorialists distanced themselves from both commercial photographers and the established camera club circuit, and sought out more prestigious alignments within the larger art milieu. In this thesis Carter's career as a Pictorialist is traced, beginning with his ambivalent relationship with the Toronto Camera Club, proceeding through his election to the Photo-Secession, his attempts to organize a parallel group of photographers in Canada, and culminating in his organization of an international exhibition of pictorial photographs in Montreal in 1907.