For Dr. Martha Langford (BFA 1975), documenting the history, impact, and influences of Canadian photography is more than a job—it’s her life’s work. Langford has dedicated her career to shining a spotlight on photography as its own form of art and expression.
Martha graduated from NSCAD University in 1975 with a BFA, a passion for photography, and a solid education in visual arts, art history and photographic techniques.
“NSCAD started me on my path in the field of photography and art history,” said Martha. “I didn’t intend to major in photography. I started in foundation, so I could learn how to do as many elements as possible. Photo instructor Ted White saw my photos and knew I had experience working in the darkroom, so he gave me a chance to move ahead a bit faster.”
The interests and skills she honed at NSCAD helped fuel her career and drive her to become one of the foremost experts in the history and evolution of Canadian photography.
Today, Dr. Martha Langford is a member of the Order of Canada, a distinguished professor emerita, and an award-winning art historian and author.
A FULFILLING CAREER
After her time at NSCAD, Martha returned to Ottawa and started working with the National Film Board (NFB) of Canada in the Still Photography Division. She remained there until 1984, working as a writer and production assistant, producer, photo editor, and later as executive producer. During her time with NFB, the photography collection was transferred to the National Gallery of Canada, becoming an affiliate museum—the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP)—with its own collection, exhibition and publishing program, and a separate building which opened in 1992.
As the Founding Director of the CMCP, Martha was also an assistant director of the National Gallery, where she worked under the direction of Dr. Shirley Thomson. She was concurrently pursuing graduate studies in Art History at McGill University, and in 1994, decided to focus on interdisciplinary research and scholarship into the intellectual history of the photographic image.
In 1997, she earned her PhD from McGill University with a thesis on photography, memory, and orality, based on a large collection of private albums held by the McCord Museum. A book based on her thesis, Suspended Conversations: The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums (2001), has become a key reference in the field of vernacular photographic studies. Her curatorial and critical work on contemporary photography continued independently. In 2005, she was the Artistic Director for Le Mois de la Photographie in Montreal and editor of its comprehensive catalogue, Image & Imagination.
Martha is also a distinguished Professor Emerita in Concordia University’s Department of Art History. From 2012 to 2025, she served as Research Chair and Director of the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art. She has also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Canadian Art History/Annales d’histoire de l’art canadien, co-editor of the Beaverbrook Foundation Series on Canadian Art History for McGill-Queen’s University Press, and a member of the editorial board of History of Photography.
A HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY IN CANADA
Drawing on decades of research and expertise, Martha is currently undertaking her most ambitious project to date: a landmark three-volume history of Canadian photography spanning the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Her first book, A History of Photography in Canada Volume 1. Anticipation to Participation, 1839-1918, was published in 2025 and spans early days following the invention of photography, to its wide application during World War I.
The publication was recently honoured with the 2026 Melva J. Dwyer Award, presented by the Canada Chapter of the Art Libraries Society of North America. Selected from 22 publications in art, architecture, and museum studies from across Canada, the award recognized the book as an essential contribution to Canadian art and photographic scholarship.
The jury praised Martha’s work, noting: “The first volume looks at hundreds of photographs generated in and about Canada-in-the-making. Emphasizing technological readiness and cultural eagerness for the medium, Martha Langford shows how photography served ideals of progress and improvement as Canada’s settler society looked to master the world by seizing its visible traces.”
This fall, Langford is set to publish the second book in the series: A History of Photography in Canada, Volume 2: A Medium Unleashed (1919-1969).
“By the early 20th century photography had emerged as a ubiquitous medium with deep cultural, social, and political force. A Medium Unleashed shows how photography moved beyond recording events to actively shaping them, transforming how Canadians imagined themselves and their country,” said Martha.
Across 25 chapters devoted to diverse photographic practices, Martha puts people, places, objects, and events firmly in the frame. Readers travel from farms and factories to laboratories and shipyards, from outports and northern communities to the streets of Winnipeg during periods of unrest, and from everyday domestic life to the optimism of Expo 67.
By 1969, photography had achieved creative legitimacy, mass appeal, practical utility, and immense persuasive power. It was embraced both by major institutions and emerging countercultural movements.
For Martha, the project represents the culmination of a lifelong commitment.
“I’ve tried in almost every phase of my work to bring attention to the visual arts in Canada, and photography in particular,” she said. “My late-career concentration on photography history is an attempt to show how photography has been used and experienced since it was first announced in 1839. In that sense, it is also a history of Canada through a photographic lens.”
ORDER OF CANADA
Within the last year, Martha Langford was inducted into the Order of Canada in recognition of her transformative contributions to Canadian visual culture, scholarship, collection-building, and preservation.
In the citation, the Governor General stated: “Martha Langford’s impact on visual culture in Canada has advanced our understanding and appreciation of the arts. An art historian and esteemed scholar in the field of photographic arts, she helped establish photography as a discipline in Canada and has developed quintessential collections of our country’s finest photographic works in museums and galleries.”
Martha is not finished yet. She’s already deep into writing Volume 3 of her book, which will document the history of photography from the 1970s to modern day.
“I want to ensure future generations will have a richer understanding of Canada’s past, one photograph at a time,” she said.
