By the book: B.C. museum honours Victoria\u2019s first female photo entrepreneur<\/p>\n
Published 11:30 am Monday, September 28, 2026<\/p>\n
A book celebrating Victoria\u2019s first female photo entrepreneur and one of Canada\u2019s earliest professional photographers launches \u2013 most appropriately \u2013 at the provincial museum this fall. <\/p>\n
Hannah Maynard: Life & Work by Elizabeth Anne Cavaliere captures the artist\u2019s life from 1834 to 1918 as the first woman in B.C. to establish a professional photography studio at a time when few people worked professionally with cameras.<\/p>\n
\u201cHannah Maynard\u2019s photographic practice was all-consuming and seeped into almost every facet of her life: her professional livelihood; leisurely bike rides; cottage excursions with her family; her relationships with her husband, children, and grandchildren; and her sensibilities about life and death,\u201d the author said in a news release. \u201cIt is unique to have such a full visual record of one\u2019s life and community as we have with Hannah Maynard in the collection of the Royal BC Museum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maynard arrived in Victoria in 1862 and within a year opened her studio, just two decades after the invention of photography. She operated that studio for the next 50 years. It was originally located on Johnston Street, and then moved to Douglas Street, and a final move in 1892 to 49 \u00bd Pandora Street, which is now John\u2019s Place Restaurant. At each location, Maynard\u2019s studio drew clients ranging from babies to convicts, sailors to dignitaries, and servants to industrialists.<\/p>\n
Cavaliere traces how Maynard, an entrepreneur, innovator, and mother of four who promoted herself as a \u201cphotographic artist,\u201d combined bold industriousness with an inventive approach to portraiture. Her work ranged from uncanny multiple exposure images and imaginative tableaux vivants to documentary work as an ethnographic and police photographer. When she retired in 1912, Maynard reflected on her life in Victoria: \u201cI think I can say with confidence that we photographed everybody in the town at one time or another.\u201d<\/p>\n
The launch, Oct. 1 at 6 p.m. at the Royal BC Museum, includes Cavaliere in conversation with Sara Angel, founder and executive director of the Art Canada Institute.<\/p>\n
Register for the free event at rbcm.ca\/event\/hannah-maynard-event<\/a>.<\/p>\n About the Author: Christine van Reeuwyk<\/a><\/p>\n