Nationality Canadian Occupation photographer Died 1940, Toronto, Canada | Other names Arthur S. Goss Name Arthur Goss | |
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Born 1881 London, Ontario | ||
"Remembering Arthur Goss" Short Documentary FIlm
Arthur S. Goss was the City of Toronto′s first official photographer. Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje relied on Goss′s photograph when researching his novel In the Skin of a Lion about the immigrant and working class experience in early 20th Century Toronto. Ondaatje decided to include Goss as a character in this novel. Following the interest in Goss, following the publication of Ondaatje′s novel, the City of Toronto Archives developed a special lecture and tour, tailored for students, addressing the role of Goss′s photos in Ondaatje's book.
Goss's duties included providing a visual record of the health and social problems posed by urban poverty. Scholars have compared Goss's photographs of urban poverty to those of Jacob A. Riis and Lewis W. Hine.
Decades after his death, his work is celebrated, in several books collecting his photographs, and in magazine profiles.