Fred Herzog Captures the City's Heart

Nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Prize

VANCOUVER, BC – 21 JANUARY, 2008.

Fred Herzog, the stunning companion book to the 2007 exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery, is back in the limelight with a nomination for the City of Vancouver Book Prize. The winner will be announced at City Hall on January 29th at 2:00 pm by Mayor Sam Sullivan, and includes a cash prize of $2,000 for the winning author(s).

Since his arrival in 1953, Fred Herzog has captured the city’s heart with his iconic and influential colour images of Vancouver street life, including second-hand shops, vacant lots, barber shops and greasy spoons, crowded with people and their stuttering dreams. His bold use of colour – highly unusual in the 1950s and ‘60s – adds to the power of his huge, and hugely influential, body of work. The text includes essays by authors Grant Arnold and Michael Turner and a lengthy interview with the artist.

For insight into Fred Herzog's work, read from snippets of the conversations he had with Grant Arnold over two months in 2006.

Other nominated titles include Anita Rau Badami’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? (Knopf Canada), Brett Josef Grubisic’s The Age of Cities (Arsenal Pulp Press) and Michael Kluckner’s Vancouver Remembered (Whitecap Books).

GRANT ARNOLD has worked at the Vancouver Art Gallery since 1992 and is now Audain Curator of British Columbia Art. Over the past 17 years he has organized more than 30 exhibitions of historical, modern and contemporary art.

MICHAEL TURNER has long been considered one of Canada’s most original, talented and versatile writers. His books include Company Town and Hard Core Logo, which has been adapted for radio, stage and film.