Michel Lambeth

Michel Lambeth (April 21, 1923 – April 09, 1977) was a Canadian photographer who made an in-depth photographic study of Toronto during the 1950s and was one of the country's leading photo-journalists during the 1960s.

Biography Thomas Henry Lambeth was born in Toronto in 1923. In 1952, he returned to Canada as an artist with a wife and an as yet undetermined path in making art. He worked at a day job as a clerk at City Hall in Toronto and experimented with film at night.

In 1955, he took up photography with a Rolleiflex (2¼ sq. format) camera and inspired by Toronto's Kensington and St. Lawrence Market districts, began an intensive study of the vibrant street life of Toronto. His photographic work was described as European in style, conveying a human interest story, compassionately shown and told.

In 1972, he said about his work: "After six years in Europe, returning to Canada turned me back to the streets of Toronto where I had grown up. The first images were extremely nostalgic. I photographed the children and grandchildren of the Macedonians, the Greeks, the English, the Irish, the Scottish, who had come to Toronto — just as my father did — about 1910. I photographed my coequals as though one day they would suddenly disappear — as I had, momentarily — to war in Europe or elsewhere." He was published in Life, Star Weekly and Maclean's, as well as becoming a reviewer for magazines. He also began in 1960 photographing the Isaacs Group: artists affiliated with the Isaacs Gallery such as Michael Snow. A write-up in The Ottawa Citizen called Lambeth "an independent photographer in Canada before that was acceptable or even respectable." In celebration of the show, in 1987, Michael Torosian published the limited edition book Michel Lambeth: The Confessions of a Tree Taster, a memoir by Lambeth of his youth, his discovery of Europe, love and art. In 1989, Maia-Mari Sutnik for the Art Gallery of Ontario curated a large overview of his work as well as the accompanying catalogue, Michel Lambeth: Photographer with tributes by John Boyle, James Reaney, Joyce Wieland, and Avrom Isaacs. To celebrate the key role of the Isaacs Gallery and the artists associated with Avrom Isaacs and as part of a larger show titled Isaacs Seen consisting of four tributes to Isaacs in partnership with the University of Toronto Art Centre, Hart House (Justina M. Barnicke Art Gallery), and the Textile Museum of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario did an adjunct two-person show in 2005 titled Isaacs Seen: Two on the Scene of Michel Lambeth and Tess Taconis.

In 2014, Canada Post released seven stamps honouring master photographers. Among them was Michel Lambeth's photograph of St. Joseph's Convent School taken in 1960.