07/19/2020
I woke up this morning and thought I wonder how Ted Grant is doing. I hadn’t heard from him for a while. Sadly a number of news articles popped up informing me he had passed away. Ted was a renowned Canadian photographer with almost 300 000 photographs in the National Archive. The largest collection for any individual photographer and he was awarded the Order of Canada.
We were both contributing photographers to Masterfile. A few of the artist belonged to a group that communicated regularly through email. Ted’s rants on the photo industry were legendary. He always had a lot to say. Often words were capitalized for effect. Colourful language was usually apologized for but never refrained from use. He was a passionate advocate for photography and never stopped photographing or showing his work. He was always sharing great advice and often his rants would include a mention of his love of single malt scotch and how he missed his wife of 64 years.
Ted was just shy of his 91st birthday and to say he lived a full life is an understatement. He covered wars, and experienced crashing race cars and airplanes. He photographed many iconic photos including the one of Trudeau sliding down the bannister.
He was a bigger than life character and he will be missed.
Over his career, Grant took pictures of era-defining events and people, from the Vietnam War and the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, to Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson crossing the Olympic finishing line and Pierre Trudeau sliding down a banister.
