Photographer Szilasi wins GG Award

The long-time Grosvenor Avenue resident has been named one of this year's recipients of the prestigious Governor General Award for Visual and Media Arts. The announcement was made Tuesday morning by the Canada Council for the Arts at Montreal's Cinémathèque québécoise. "I feel proud because it’s recognition by my peers,” Szilasi told The Examiner. “I was very surprised and moved when I first found about it.”

This honour has encouraged the 82-year-old documentary photographer to continue working, he says, but perhaps at a slower pace. “Photography is Gabor’s whole life — it’s how he sees the world,” said Szilasi’s wife, photographer Doreen Lindsay. “Now people are really appreciating what he’s been doing all these years.”

Szilasi, whose collection of photographs was widely shown last year in the acclaimed exhibition The Eloquence of the Everyday, will be presented a Governor General Award for artistic achievement. Also honoured in that category this year are Haida sculptor Robert Davidson, filmmaker André Forcier, painter Rita Letendre, video artist Tom Sherman, and painter Claude Tousignant. Glass sculptor Ione Thorkelsson won the Saidye Bronfman Award for excellence in fine crafts, while Terry Ryan received the Outstanding Contribution Award as long-time general manager of West Baffin Eskimo cooperative in Cape Dorset, Nunavut. “I salute these artists who, through their unique vision and immense talent, open our eyes wide to all those things, in us and around us, that we look at without really seeing,” stated Governor General Michaëlle Jean. “These prestigious career awards celebrate creativity and excellence,” added Canada Council Chair Joseph Rotman. “The extraordinary talent, imagination and accomplishments of these eight individuals show us how the arts contribute to the vitality of Canadian society.”

The Governor General will present the 2010 Awards at a ceremony at Rideau Hall on Wednesday, March 31 at 6 p.m.

Photo: Martin Lipman, Canada Council for the Arts