Nick Yudell, a Photographer Discovered
Curated by Celia Rabinovitch
Exhibition produced by the Manitoba Museum
Nick Yudell at St. John’s Technical Collegiate, Winnipeg, made with Willie Lucow, 1931 (No. 14); Nick proudly shows his new camera on the steps of his school at fifteen.
Nick Yudell’s dramatic black and white photographs span the Jazz Age – when he was 12 and received a camera – and the Great Depression, bridging the 1920s through 1930s, reflecting the life around him in rural Manitoba. Nick Yudell is a lost artist whose images have been brought to life. His work is a major discovery. Nick Yudell (1916-1943) perished in the Western Desert of World War II.
Life around him captivated him. He photographed his world in quiet moments and sensitive portraits. He anticipated avant-garde art with double exposures and experimental lighting. His work aspired to a modern vision that paralleled the art emerging from Europe, yet he worked without the resources that many other artists had. Living on the prairies, he pursued his imagination, creating vivid black and white images of glamor and grit.
And after Nick Yudell (1916-1943), a young photographer from Morden, Manitoba, captured unique images of life on the prairies before sacrificing his life with the RAF in North Africa in World War II. His story unfolds in a new traveling exhibition at the Pembina Hills Arts Council, 352 Stephen Street, Morden, Manitoba, October 3 to November 5, 2023, and at the Manitoba Museum , 2022.
Imagine opening a box of negatives shot before World War II by a young man from rural Manitoba who died in that war.
Whosoever opens this box opens a world.
It is a world that exists no longer, brought to life through Nick Yudell’s images. Lost persons and moments enter our world partial and incomplete. They flicker with life, asking us to remember them, to find their place in Nick’s story. The new art of photography captured him. No one has seen these images since 1940, when he closed the box he made for his negatives and left to fly with the RAF. His pen still inks each brown envelope with the time, date, place, lighting conditions, and names of those individuals he photographed. Enclosed lives a vivid world captured by a young photographer from Morden, Manitoba during the Dirty Thirties.
“The work that Celia has done through her passionate attention, bringing the past into our time, reminds us of the complex tissue of existence and the balance between here and now, us and them.”
- Ihor Holubizky, Art Historian, author of Living Building Thinking: Art and Expressionism
Prior to World War II, Nick crafted this grey box to hold his negatives, organizing them in brown envelopes.
Manitoba Museum, February 19 - January 9, 2023 and the Pembina Hills Arts Centre, October 3 - November 5, 2023
We thank the organizations and individuals who provided support for The Lost Expressionist. Even with significant support, we need your help to complete this exhibition. The Pembina Hills Arts Council Inc. has established ‘The Lost Expressionist Development Fund’ to issue charitable tax receipts for all donations. To support The Lost Expressionist please designate your donation to The Lost Expressionist Development Fund at the Pembina Hills Arts Council.