Image of Hans Dommasch, Professor Emeritus, Department of Art & Art History.

Bio/Historical Note: Born in Tilsit on 25 August 1926, Hans Dommasch's early life was shadowed by the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. By 1936 membership in the Hitler Youth was virtually compulsory. He was sent to military college at age 14 and into action on the Eastern Front at 16, where he was wounded twice. But his was never a military mindset. It was, he said later, a time he would rather forget. By 1954, he was eager to leave Germany. Dommasch got a position with Photographic Services at the University of Saskatchewan in 1955, and took a further course at the New York Institute of Photography. He was an associate with the Royal Photographic Society (1963) and a Fellow of the Biographical Photographic Association (1965), and quickly became known in the College of Medicine as a superb photographer with "an excellent eye to good medical illustration." Dommasch’s work earned several international awards: bronze (1970) and silver (1972) medals from the British Medical Association for his films; the Cliff Shaw Memorial Award from the Natural History Society (1964); and Canada's highest award at the time, the William V. Gordon Award for contributions to photography (1974). Dommasch was recruited by Eli Bornstein into the department of Art and Art History, where he offered the first class in photography. He served as head of Art and Art History from 1984-1993, and upon his retirement from the university was named Professor Emeritus. Dommasch’s own work was exhibited widely and often reflected the natural landscape. A trip with Bornstein to the Canadian arctic resulted in "Canada North of 60," an exhibit and lecture he presented internationally. Prairie Giants, a book of his photographs documenting grain elevators, was published in 1986. Dommasch studied the use of photography in propaganda, leading to a touring exhibition, Posters Against War and Violence. His final exhibition, My World, was held concurrently in the Mendel Art Gallery, the Kenderdine Gallery, and the Saskatoon Public Library galleries – a first in Saskatoon. Dommasch died on 20 November 2017 in Saskatoon at age 91.