Studio portrait display boards 1881–92

Throughout its nearly fifty years in operation, the Mrs. R. Maynard Photographic Gallery dealt with large numbers of clients with a range of needs: having their portrait made; selecting and purchasing prints from an existing catalogue; stocking up on photography supplies; and even using the studio to make their own photographs. While many of the receipts and records of Maynard’s studio have been lost over time, those that still exist give us a glimpse into how the studio operated.

Chief among the artifacts from the studio is a set of display boards that served the purpose of advertising Maynard’s photographic services, enabling her clients to select the backdrops, props, and effects used to stage their portrait. The board above is a significant example, featuring an artful arrangement of thirteen of Maynard’s experimental photo-sculpture photographs. The board shows a range of croppings, backgrounds, techniques, and styles, with some images displaying full bodies and others only busts. Some appear with props, others are framed by columns and archways. Perhaps placed in the studio window or displayed in the front rooms, these boards showcased Maynard’s best works and range of styles. Anyone uncertain about the photographer’s skill had only to look at the display board of her statuary portraits for evidence of her technical and creative abilities.

Studio albums, such as the “Photographic album from Mrs. R. Maynard’s Photographic Gallery,” were also used to earn the business of would-be sitters. This album of more than one hundred photographs contains samples of photocollages produced for Maynard’s Gems series and examples of her photo-sculpture works, as well as portraits of individual children in various settings. These would indicate to any parent who had come to the studio Maynard’s unique approaches and rapport with her young sitters. In addition to these important marketing tools, Maynard kept records of all of her sitters in her studio registers.

Unlike other studio photographers of the same time, such as William Notman (1826–1891), of Montreal, whose extensive records survive nearly intact in the Notman Photographic Archives held by the McCord Stewart Museum, Maynard kept studio records that are incomplete and imprecise. This makes it difficult for contemporary scholars and archivists to match sitters’ portraits with names in the register. For example, page 47 of the register indicates that Ah Foo paid 50 cents to get his portrait taken at some point in 1892. There are several Ah Foos listed throughout the register, so we can’t be sure it is the same Ah Foo who worked for Charles F. Newcombe. We can see that the Ah Foo negatives are numbered 1962 and 1963, but there are no traces of these numbers on the negatives, and Maynard’s record-keeping seemed to exclude precise dates. However, she does make some telling notes, typically of the type of print made—usually a cabinet card—and the quantity ordered, and always indicating if the sitter was a baby. She also lists the sitter’s place of residence. These range across British Columbia and beyond, a testament to her thriving enterprise and reputation.