Home > Artist Database > Bio-bibliographic Database > MOODIE, Geraldine
Artist Database
MOODIE, Geraldine
- Born
- Toronto, Ontario, 1854
- Died
- Midnapore, Alberta, 1945
- Biography synopsis
- Geraldine Moodie (nee Fitzgibbon) was the daughter of C. Fitzgibbon and Agnes Dunbar Moodie, an illustrator, and granddaughter of Susanna Moodie, who wrote "Roughing it in the Bush." In 1878 she married John Douglas Moodie, a distant cousin who had been a sergeant in the Glasgow Police Force prior to immigrating to Canada where he became a member of the North-West Mounted Police. Geraldine Moodie accompanied him to various postings across Western Canada where she became the first pioneer woman photographer to record the lives of local settlers, First Nations peoples and wildflowers, as well as the work of the North-West Mounted Police. In 1895 she was the first women to open a professional photography studio on the prairies in Battleford, Saskatchewan, and in 1897 after closing her first studio she opened another in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, and a second in Medicine Hat, Alberta. Notably in 1895, she was the first woman photographer to be commissioned by the Prime Minister. In 1904 Moodie followed her husband to Cape Fullerton, on the north shore of Hudson Bay, where she became the first woman to photograph the Inuit. In 1917 Moodie returned to southern Saskatchewan, where she continued to take pictures. Collections of her photographs are held by The British Museum, the Glenbow Museum, the Public Archives of Canada, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Heritage Centre in Regina, among others. Interestingly, her cousin Grace Strickland set up a photography studio in Kalispell, Montana at about the same time as Moodie.
- Media used
- Artists' illustrated books
- Photography
- Watercolour
- File & Archive locations
- Royal Canadian Mounted Police Archives, ON
- Canadian Women Artists History Initiative Documentation Centre, QC
- National Gallery of Canada, ON - Library and Archives
- Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec - Bibliothèque
- Morgan Library and Museum, NY
- Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, ON
- Esplanade Archives, Medicine Hat, AB
- University of Saskatchewan Archives
- Glenbow Archives, AB - Main Catalogue
- Northwest Territories Archives
- University of Toronto Libraries, ON
- Royal Canadian Mounted Police Museum, SK
- Trent University Archives, ON
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
Writings about- The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan Regina: Unversity of Regina, Canadian Plains Research Center, 2005
- "A Feminine Focus on the Last Frontier: Newly Discovered Treasures from the British Museum." Arctic Circle (Spring 1994): 16-21
- Blomgren, Constance. Gazing Forward, Gazing Back: A Hermeneutic Inquiry Regarding Photographs. Calgary: Univerity of Calgary, 2007
- Carr, Angela, ed. Raven Papers: Remembering Natalie Luckyj (1945-2002) Newcastle, ON: Penumbra Press, 2010
- Cavell, Edward. Sometimes a Great Nation: A Photo Album of Canada, 1850-1925 Banff: Altitude Publications, 1984
- Clemence, Verne. "Frontier Photographer: Geraldine Moodie." Saskatchewan's Own: People who made a Difference. Calgary: Fifth House, 2004
- Close, Susan. Framing Identity: Social Practices of Photography in Canada (1880 - 1920) Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2007
- Close, Susan. Framing Identity: Social Practices of Photography in Canada (1880-1920) Amsterdam: Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (PhD dissertation), 2005
http://hdl.handle.net/11245/1.243568 - Close, Susan. "The Camera and the Contact Zone: Re-Envisioning the Representation of Aboriginal Women in the Canadian North." Transculturation in British Art, 1770-1930. Ed Julie F. Codell. London, New York: Routledge, 2017
- Close, Susan Michelle. Framing Identity: Mattie Gunterman, Geraldine Moodie and the Social Practice of Photography in Canada (1880 - 1920) Ottawa: Carleton University (M.A. thesis), 1995
http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item?id=mq22057&op=pdf&app=Library&oclc_number=46556564 - Condon, Richard G. "The History and Development of Arctic Photography." Arctic Anthropology 26.1 (1989): 46-47
- Donegan, Rosemary. Work, Weather and the Grid: Agriculture in Saskatchewan. Regina, Sask.: Dunlop Art Gallery, 1991
http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/1881/1/Donegan_Work_1991.pdf - Forster, Merna. 100 Canadian Heroines: Famous and Forgotten Faces Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2004
- Greenhill, Ralph and Andrew Birrell. Canadian Photography : 1839-1920 Toronto: The Coach House, 1979
- Hamelin, Christine. "A Snapshot of Geraldine Moodie." Kingston Whig - Standard Feb. 2005: 5
- Hannavy, John, ed. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography New York: Routledge, 2008
- Hatfield, Philip. Canada in the Frame. London: University College London, 2018
- Hatfield, Philip. Drawing Back the Curtain: Geraldine Moodie and the Canadian Arctic, 1904–1905. MA thesis. London, England: University of London, 2006
- Huneault, Kristina. I'm Not Myself at All: Women, Art, and Subjectivity in Canada Montreal; Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2018
- Jones, Laura. Rediscovery: Canadian Women Photographers 1841-1941, May 13th-June 27th, 1983 London, Ontario: London Regional Art Gallery, 1983
- Koltun, Lilly, ed. Private Realms of Light: Amateur Photography in Canada 1839-1940 Markham, Ontario: Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 1984
- McCann, Edward. "Geraldine Moodie, Saskatchewan." Canadian Woman Studies / Les Cahiers de la femme 2.2 (1980): 12-14
- Newman, Sherry Elizabeth. By One Attached to...But not of: Historical Photography of the Eastern Arctic by Luta Munday and Geraldine Moodie Edmonton: University of Alberta, 1998
- Polk, Milbry and Mary Tiegreen. Women of Discovery: A Celebration of Intrepid Women who Explored the World. New York: C. Potter, 2001
- Rosenblum, Naomi. A History of Women Photographers New York: Abbeville, 2000
- Silversides, Brock V. "Geraldine Moodie, Through a Woman's Eye." Epic 1.1 (March 1991): 27-31
- Skidmore, Colleen. Rare Merit: Women in Photography in Canada, 1840-1940 Vancouver: UBC Press, 2022
- Ward, Stephen. "Native Artifacts get New Home." Toronto Star 19 Nov. 1994: 14
- White, Donny. Geraldine Moodie: An Inventory on CD-ROM. Regina: University of Regina, Canadian Plains Research Center, 2001
- White, Donny. Geraldine Moodie: An Inventory. Regina: University of Regina, Canadian Plains Research Center, 1999
- White, Donny. In Search of Geraldine Moodie. Regina: University of Regina, Canadian Plains Research Center, 1999
- White, Donny. "In Search of Geraldine Moodie: A Project in Progress." Imaging the Arctic. London: British Musuem Press, 1998: 88-97
- Wojna, Lisa. Great Canadian Women: Nineteen Portraits of Extraordinary Women Edmonton, Alberta: Folklore Publishing, 2005
