Byron Harmon has been synonymous with photography and the Canadian Rockies, specifically Banff, since 1906, creating numerous photographs that today continue to be an important record of our past.
But a link to that visual record will be cut when the Harmon Gallery in Harmony Lane closes this year, either later this month or into next month.
That link won’t be gone for good as the photographs will be available on-line, but the gallery has long been an opportunity to discover the historical work of both Byron and his son, Don, first hand (The Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies does continue to have a large number of Harmon photographs in its archives).
Carole Harmon, Byron’s granddaughter, who also exhibits her own photography at the gallery, said Tuesday (Oct. 4) the current show – The Rainbow Mountains, featuring Byron’s photographs from the 1911 Mt. Robson expedition – will be the gallery’s last.
Harmon said she is closing the gallery, which has been open since 2004, for a variety of reasons, including the economic downturn and challenging shoulder seasons.
“Galleries in Banff have always been fragile things. I know other galleries have a hard time of surviving because of the seasonality,” Harmon said. “That’s what any retail business faces in Banff, but we didn’t do the volume that could carry us through the shoulder season.
“I spun this out for a while hoping it would get better, but it’s only getting worse. (Harmon Gallery) stood alone as long as there were people around. We never really made money on it, but it was hovering on the edge of being viable,” she said.
Harmon began exhibiting the historical photographs by her father and grandfather in 1991 when she opened her Banff store Nature Works, which later became Wild Elements and evolved into the gallery.
Harmon said she also faced a constant dilemma of including only her family’s work over representing other photographers. The decision limited the variety of work and frequency of new exhibitions.
“I didn’t want to get into being a photography gallery. It’s one thing to market it to be responsible for my family’s work, it’s another to represent other people’s work.
Rather than continuing with a stand-alone gallery in Banff, Harmon plans to offer her work, along with the photographs of Byron and Don, on-line through a new website that will allow photographs to be displayed and ordered.
Harmon also plans to continue to use hallways on the two floors of Harmony Lane to set up interpretive displays using the photographs that would have hung in the gallery.
And Harmon has no plans to stop creating photography exhibits with her father’s and grandfather’s, or her own work, she’ll instead find different venues.
For example, Harmon is working with the Jasper museum to send The Rainbow Mountains to that community.
The current gallery web addresses of harmonphotography.com and caroleharmon.ca will continue to be active and eventually link to the new site.
