Photography of Richard Morawetz

In those days, photography was still in its infancy. There was no film; instead, pictures were taken on large glass plates. In 1910 when Richard Morawetz made his Asian tour, he took 700 of these glass plates and two cameras in many suitcases. These plates needed a long exposure time, and so the camera had to be set up on a tripod. This led to one amusing incident in India when Richard went up to Mount Abou to see the Temple of Jains. He had been warned that it was forbidden to take any photographs, but that did not deter him:

Needless to say, the light was dim inside and, in order to take pictures, I had to use a tripod and an exposure of several minutes. The moment the custodian saw me setting up my equipment, he started gesticulating and explaining that I was not allowed to take pictures. However, I gestured back at him and told him in Czech that I was going ahead anyway. This went on for a little while and, in the end, I had him so confused and intimidated that he let me do as I pleased. Of course these particular photos turned out to be something of a rarity, they were published in an art magazine after my return home.

The photographs that Richard took as he travelled through Burma, Thailand, Java, Southern China and Japan were some of the earliest photographs ever to be taken in Asia, and stirred a lot of interest on his return. In a 1904 trip to North America, Richard took many pictures of San Francisco before the devastating 1906 earthquake. Unfortunately almost all of these photographs were destroyed during the second World War. Only one photograph from his Asian trip, of two girls in kimonos which Richard had given as a gift to his secretary Mrs. Jedličkova, was saved. After the war, she gave this photograph to Richard's son, Herbert.

After emigrating to Canada, Richard took up his photography hobby once more, developing and printing his pictures in his own dark room in the basement of his home. He used to jokingly refer to his dark room as his "Panama" in reference to the eccentric Teddy from the play Arsenic and Old Lace, who buries his murdered guests in his basement, believing he is Teddy Roosevelt, burying the victims of yellow fever during the construction of the Panama Canal. Amazingly although Richard was over 60 years old when he started developing pictures and his hands already shook with the tremors of old age, when he poured the chemicals required for developing pictures, his hands were absolutely steady.

While the World War II was raging in Europe, Richard Morawetz let it be known that if any woman had a husband fighting in the army, he would photograph their children free of charge. This allowed many women on small allowances, as well as more prominent families to have their children photographed.

Richard collected the best of these photographs, and on two separate occasions, exhibited his work in the Simpson's Galleries in Toronto. This was arranged by Mr. E. Burton, founder and owner of Simpson's stores, who had become friends with Richard Morawetz.

Click here to view some of the photographs from these exhibitions.