Yucho Chow

Yucho Chow (1876–1949) was a professional photographer who was Vancouver's first Chinese photographer and its most prolific. He ran a studio in Chinatown from 1906 to 1949.

Life and career

Yucho Chow was born on 3 June 1876, in Hoy Ping (now called Kaiping), Guangdong province, China.Griffin, 27 April 2019.Clement 2019, p. 29. Leaving his wife and two children behind, he arrived in Canada in February 1902, with the requirement of paying the $100 head tax. It is rumoured that he worked as a house servant while apprenticing with an unknown photographer. By 1906, he had the money to buy equipment and open up a photographic studio.

Although Chow was Chinese, he became as well a favourite photographer for other marginalized communities. He opened his doors to customers of South Asian; African; Indigenous; mixed-race and Eastern European descent.Clement 2019, p. 10. His marketing slogan, which he emblazoned on his business cards and on the signs at the front of his studio, was "Rain or Shine. Anything. Anywhere. Anytime."Clement 2019, p. 33. He often produced photographs in postcard format. Chow paid careful attention to his props and backdrops, using them to convey an aura of sophistication and success for his patrons.Clement 2019, p. 34. In 1935, his studio was extensively damaged by fire, and afterwards he changed his background from European opulence to a striking Art Deco style.Clement 2019, p. 42.

Over four decades, he captured photos of people across the arc of life's journey: from newborn babies to the recently deceased (whose photographs were sent back to family in China and Europe, and served as an informal death certificate). He recorded the faces of entertainers, politicians, families, children and soldiers. Outside the studio, he chronicled the community: celebrations, graduating school children, clan events, and celebrity visits. Frequently, he also was at the local train station, photographing newly arrived European immigrants.

Cultural researcher Naveen Gill stated, "Without him, I would say we had almost no photographs of the early South Asian community."Xu, 12 May 2019. In 1915, Chow photographed the funeral procession of the Sikh activist Mewa Singh.Cheung, 29 December 2020.

In 1927, he created a composite photograph of the Hoy Ping Benevolent Association.Clement 2019, p. 110. Chow portrayed Dr. Sun Yat-Sen on one of his final visits to Vancouver.Clement 2019, p. 100. His photograph of the young tap dancer Howard Fair appeared in the ''Vancouver Sun'' in 1938. Later shown in the same newspaper was his 1943 image of the paratrooper Richard Keye Mar.

A number of Chow's children worked in the studio. His first assistant was his eldest daughter, Mabel Chow (1900–1940). Since the Yucho Chow Studio was open twenty four hours, Mabel worked long days and did everything from carrying the heavy tripod to developing the film. In the early years, she also was a frequent model for her father as he honed his skills on the camera.Clement 2019, p. 38.

In the 1930s, another daughter, Jessie Chow, joined the studio and was trained to hand paint photos using oils.Clement 2019, p. 41. At first she only painted in small articles like flowers and ties, but later expanded to colouring whole photographs.Cheung, 16 May 2019.

Upon Chow's sudden death of chronic myocarditis in November 1949, his sons Peter and Philip Chow took over the studio and ran it until 1986. When they finally retired and closed the studio, all of the negatives, spanning almost eight decades, were discarded. Consequently, today most of Chow's work is hidden away in private family albums.Clement 2019, p. 9.

Legacy

A life-sized image of Chow was placed in an East Pender street window in 2017.Lee-Young, 17 May 2017.

In 2019, an month-long exhibition of 80 of his photographs was shown in Vancouver at the Chinese Canadian Museum.Griffin, 3 May 2019.Clement 2019, p. 13. It took the curator, Catherine Clement, over eight years to find Chow's photographs which she uncovered one photo at a time, one family at a time.

A 344-page book of his photographs was published in 2019. ''Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow'' showcases a wide range of these private photographs of diverse communities that were taken by him.

Artifacts from his Vancouver studios, including some portraits, are housed in the permanent collection of the Museum of Vancouver.

Gallery

File:Won Alexander Cumyow, 1910.jpg, Won Alexander Cumyow, 1910.
File:Dr. Sun Yat-sen, 1910 or 1911.jpg, Dr. Sun Yat-sen, 1910 or 1911.
File:Ella Erickson, circa 1914.jpg, Ella Erickson, circa 1914.
File:Quon On Jan Travel Agency, Maw Sun Hay - owner, 1915.jpg, Quon On Jan Travel Agency, 1915.
File:Unknown foursome, circa 1915.jpg, Unknown foursome, circa 1915.
File:Italian wedding, 1918.jpg, Italian wedding, 1918.
File:Ishar Singh Gill, 1918.jpg, Ishar Singh Gill, 1918.
File:Wong York, circa 1918.jpg, Wong York, circa 1918.
File:Yucho Chow collection at MoV.jpg, Yucho Chow artifacts at the Museum of Vancouver.

Notes

References

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External links

Yucho Chow website
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chow, Yucho
1876 births
1949 deaths
20th-century Canadian photographers
Chinese emigrants to Canada