We lost a great photographer and curator when Terry Toedtemeier died after giving a speech about his book Wild Beauty yesterday in Hood River. He was considered Portland's premiere landscape photographer and besides vastly improving the Portland Art Museum's photography collection, his own collected exhibit Wild Beauty is up now at the Art Museum until January 11. Hear him discuss the book here. He also co-curated Blue Sky - my favorite photo gallery in the Portland.
I've been working at the Oregon Historical Society preparing for "Holiday Cheer" the museum's annual author meet -n-greet, and have spent the last few weeks preparing his book along with other Oregon related books for the event. Wild Beauty was one I'd picked up over and over while I worked, flipping through the photos and marvelling at the beauty in the landscape of Oregon. Unfortunately, I did not attend the event and missed meeting him and I'm sorry for that.
What is bizarre is that last year, he'd had an exhibit up called From Hawaii to Owyhee. Which is somehwat ironic since lately I've been researching Hawaiians in the Pacific Northwest from 1811-1870s. Below is his statement for the exhibit.
From Hawaii to Owyhee
Statement: It is a kind of twisted irony that a place name, the Owyhee River, in the remote landscape of Southeastern Oregon would derive from the deaths of two men conscripted from their native island of Hawaii, by the explorer Peter Skeen Ogden in 1819. Although the Owyhee country is vastly different from the Big Island, it is also home to the Jordan Crater lava field - a place virtually identical to Hawaii’s more recent lava landscapes. Though the photographs in this exhibition include images from both Hawaii and the Owyhee country, there are many other depictions of basalt landforms that are millions of years older. These photographs trace a large igneous province that extends from Southeastern Oregon to the Columbia Plateau and ultimately to the Northern Oregon Coast. - Terry Toedtemeier, March 2007
The show's different threads mirrored Toedtemeier's many dimensions. And what did these many dimensions share?
"Beauty," says Toedtemeier's wife, Roberts. "He was trying to find that special place of beauty."