Vintage Vancouver

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Dick Oulton, "Unknown," circa 1950s

Vancouver in the 1950s and 1960s has been well documented. Street photographers Foncie Pulice and Fred Herzog come to mind. Commercial photographer Dick Oulton, who ran a photo studio on West Hastings Street, also contributed to the photographic scene. A selection of his work, Dick Oulton Studios Ltd: Wedding – Color – Portraits, is on view at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver until Oct. 31.

“You don’t get an opportunity to see a commercial photographer’s body of work very often,” says gallery manager Diane Evans, who curated the show. “We tend to show a lot of fine art photography.”

Evans became familiar with Oulton’s work when his files were gifted to Presentation House, the Polygon’s forerunner, shortly after his death in 2000. Although individual works have been shown before, this is the first time the lensman has commanded centre stage. The result is an illuminating record of mid-century enterprise.

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Dick Oulton, "Kemano," 1953

The collection is grouped thematically and includes wedding photos, family snapshots, bank and restaurant interiors, the construction of the massive Kemano hydroelectric generating station in 1953, and a fascinating series of outlandish hairstyles he compiled as the official photographer of the B.C. Hairdressers Association.

“I really love the variety of jobs that he did,” says Evans. “I just pulled out a selection from each area he photographed.”

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Dick Oulton, "38th Annual Wholesale Fruit National Convention," circa 1950s

There are a variety of styles too. His Kemano pictures are crisp and detailed, his wedding pictures carefully posed and studio-lit. Others, such as some of his pictures of the Wholesale Fruit Convention, look like they were shot on the fly. It would be easy to dismiss his work as simply a matter of record and the exhibition as a historical oddity. But closer inspection reveals Oulton’s creative side.

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Dick Oulton, "Laurence Family," 1964

“I think every show has to have a little bit of poetry and mystery in it,” says Evans. Three small studies from the Kemano series focus not on the massive undertaking but on tiny elements strewn on the construction floor. They are almost abstract in their simplicity and form. His carefully composed Park Lane Dance School photograph betrays a curious intimacy. A series of the Laurence family, posed a bit self-consciously, also tickles the imagination. Did they commission Oulton for their family album? “Maybe it was just for them,” says Evans. “They could have asked him to come in and photograph the family.”

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Dick Oulton, "The Park Lane Dance School," 1955

As a commercial photographer, Oulton travelled the province, documenting the life and times of a society in transition. Evans says the show has struck a chord with the general public. “I could change the show every day," she says. "There are so many photographs to choose from.”  ■