Under the Cuban Sun with Marie-Victorin - A virtual exhibit of the Montréal Botanical Garden

Marie-Victorin,
a little-known photographer

We rarely hear Marie-Victorin referred to as a photographer.

Yet he travelled from the Mingan Islands to Mexico, from the Gasp? Peninsula to California, from South Africa to England, enthusiastically photographing both nature and human subjects.

The Institut botanique archives, at the Universit? de Montr?al, contain tens of thousands of photographs taken primarily between 1922 and 1943 by Marie-Victorin and others he worked with. There are some 4,300 images from his trips to Cuba alone, almost all of them taken by Marie-Victorin himself: 1,640 black and white photographs, 2,165 colour slides and nearly 555 colour glass plates ? which are actually coloured copies of some of his black and white photographs. They all served as ideal material for illustrating his courses and lectures and the Contributions published by the Institut botanique, and more.

Marie-Victorin in Cuba:
a camera slung around his neck,
a machete at his feet and a plant in his hand.

UdeM: E01185FP11698

Photo: Michel Tremblay, JBM

It was most likely in Cuba, in 1939, that he first used the Kodachrome film launched by Eastman Kodak in 1935, with a 35mm version for colour slides introduced the following year. Marie-Victorin also took advantage of the new slide-mounting service offered by the company. But he did not give up his black and white photography. In 1939 alone, he took 1,085 black and white photos, possibly with a second camera.

Although he did not consider himself an expert photographer, Marie-Victorin wrote to a colleague, Marcel Cailloux, that his photos were good enough to make the latter swoon with envy! Today his images may seem slightly timeworn ? but what a wonderful legacy he left us.

Marie-Victorin,a little-known photographer

Marie-Victorin,
a little-known photographer