Views from Manitoba 1890-1940

“Mennonite Village Photography” exhibit features a beautiful collection of never-before-seen photographs left behind by four Manitoba Mennonite photographers who lived and worked in the early twentieth century.

The images are from glass and film negatives stored in institutional archives and family collections. After being scanned and given a new life in print, the photos provide a clear view into Mennonite life and early settlement in Manitoba. 

Professional photographers at this time usually specialized in taking posed portraits against painted backdrops in studios. The Mennonite photographers mimicked that style, but they also captured a much less artificial picture of what existed around them.

Though two of the photographers, Heinrich D. Fast and Johann E. Funk, were encouraged by their respective churches to give up their hobby in preparation for baptism and marriage, all four captured an array of subjects both posed and candid, and the images reveal something of how they saw their worlds.

Even if the men photographed for only a short window of time, their images freeze-frame a distinctive and fleeting period of time in the history of Mennonite village life in western Canada. 

The Mennonite Historic Arts Committee is comprised of a team of specialists on Mennonite history and material culture committed to the preservation, publication, and exhibition of historic Mennonite art forms. Team members include: 

• Susie Fisher, Ph.D., Curator, Gallery in the Park 

• Conrad Stoesz, M. A., Archivist, Mennonite Heritage Archives 

• Roland Sawatzky, Ph.D., Curator of History, Manitoba Museum 

• Frieda Esau Klippenstein, M. A., Historian, Parks Canada 

• Andrea Klassen, M. A., Senior Curator, Mennonite Heritage Village 

• Anikó Szabó, Graphic Designer / Art Director   

Exhibit Open: February 15, 2024 – Summer 2024