<ALBERT JACQUES FRANCK working in his studio, 90 Hazelton Avenue, Yorkville>  Painter HAROLD TOWN in his 1974 book “Albert Franck – Keeper of The Laneways” wrote: “What makes Albert Franck’s contribution unique is the fact that he was not pursuing the barbarians of the new or defending the crusty antiquarians of the old, he was following his heart.”

And his heart lay in the ramshackle backstreet laneways of TORONTO. HAROLD TOWN: “What Franck saw and recorded years ago, when it was fashionable to leave this city denouncing our provincial ways, has become a holy cause, a solid fact of political life and a civic example through all of North America.”

ALBERT JACQUES FRANCK was born in Middelburg, Holland. He arrived in Montréal in 1926 at the age of 27; died in TORONTO in 1973. ALBERT FRANCK’s work can be found in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario, University of Toronto Hart House, the McMichael Gallery and many other public and private collections around the world.

<PHOTO ABOVE – My Cabbagetown laneway after a blizzard, December/2014>