1934-2005
Printed in 2009
Exhibition Dates: May 26 – June 2, 2009
Special Exhibition Hours: Open 24 hours
Reception and Book Launch: Tuesday, May 26, 5 – 8pm
Special Events: Monday, June 1st
The gallery is pleased to present over 200 photographs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono taken during their historic 1969 eight day Bed-in For Peace at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montréal. “Give Peace A Chance:” an exhibition of works by Gerry Deiter coincides with the 40th anniversary of this event, and many of the photographs have never been previously displayed. The gallery will remain open 24 hours per day for this special 8 day exhibition.
In May 1969, Gerry Deiter was assigned by LIFE magazine to photograph Lennon and Ono at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel during their protest against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. He captured hundreds of images of the couple in public and behind the scenes, as celebrities and visitors poured through the room. It was during this protest that Lennon wrote the song Give Peace A Chance, which he then recorded spontaneously with an unlikely crowd who just happened to be there at the time. Despite the media attention that the event received, Deiter’s photographs were never published in LIFE; it was bumped in favour of another story about the war. Instead, they were filed away for 30 years until 2001 when the events on September 11th inspired Deiter to try and rekindle the couple’s message of peace, love and compassion.
These images eloquently capture the spirituality and the idealism that lay behind the media event. In 2005, Gerry Deiter wrote “Being present at the birth of that powerful anthem to peace had a special significance to me, helping me to embark on a new life, both professionally and spiritually. It was a time for revolution, of social and political upheaval that, like the words and music of Give Peace a Chance, echoes down through the decades and inspires us today to bring peace, compassion and justice to the world.”
Born in Brooklyn, Deiter grew up in Greenwich Village where at a very early age he began taking photographs of the city. Surrounded by art and fashion during his teens, he was an apprentice to many of the top New York fashion and commercial photographers. Soon he regularly had fashion spreads in Women’s Wear Daily and his work was on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar magazine. He also photographed the jazz scene in New York and shot the first two album covers for Frank Zappa. In the 1960s, Deiter became involved in the anti-Vietnam war movement where he documented numerous protests. In 1968, he moved to Canada, where he settled in Montréal and continued to work as a photojournalist featured in publications such as Time Magazine and Life.
By 1970, Deiter had moved to the West Coast where he became the first photographer to sail with the Greenpeace Too to protest nuclear testing on Amchitka Island. He was the founding editor of the newspaper, Prince Rupert This Week, and continued his news work as a contributing editor to the online news site, Peace, Earth & Justice News.
This exhibition is the first showing of Deiter’s photographs in Ontario and coincides with an exhibition in Lennon’s hometown of Liverpool, United Kingdom, at the Beatles Story Museum. In June, the series will also travel to the Museum at Bethel Woods, the site of the famous Woodstock Festival.
