Exhibit reveals photographic skills of Julia Margaret Cameron, a woman who championed the young medium
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This Julia Margaret Cameron image, called "The Kiss of Peace," was made in 1869. At left is Mary Hillier, one of the photographer's servants, and Elizabeth Koewen, a local woman from the town of Freshwater on the Isle of Wight. The scene was inspired by the Biblical story of the Visitation. -
This picture, made around 1862, shows the family of poet laureate Alfred Tennyson. From left to right are Lionel, Emily, Alfred and Hallam Tennyson. The picture was made by Oscar Gustave Rejlander, a Swedish photographer who influenced Julia Margaret Cameron. -
The photographer's niece, Julia Jackson, in the mid-1860s.
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Julia Margaret Cameron's artistic sensibility and skill with a camera allowed her to capture a rarefied circle of bohemian celebrities in the Victorian era. Known as a pioneer in photography and one of the medium's early masters, she was the 19th century's version of Annie Leibovitz.
On the idyllic Isle of Wight off the coast of England, she captured images of her good friend, poet laureate Alfred Tennyson, pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt and Sir Henry Taylor, a British dramatist in dire need of a comb.
"She's one of the first people to contribute to this idea that photography is an art, not just something to capture the real and the objective. She defines for us what the Victorian era looks like," said Sarah J. Hall, director of curatorial affairs at The Frick Art Museum, where an exhibition of her work opens Saturday and runs though Jan. 2.
"For my best beloved Sister Mia: An Album of Photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron" features 46 images by Mrs. Cameron and 15 images by Oscar Gustave Rejlander, a Swedish photographer who influenced her. Additional pictures are by an unknown photographer.
Born Julia Margaret Pattle in Calcutta, India, she was the plainest of seven wealthy sisters, some of whom were renowned for their beauty and married English aristocrats. Sara, Virginia and Julia Pattle were known, respectively, as "Dash," "Beauty" and "Talent." Author William Makepeace Thackeray referred to the seven exuberant women as "Pattledom" and their gatherings as "Pattlefields."
Mrs. Cameron was a mother of six, and her domestic cup overflowed. But her life changed in 1863 when she was 48 and her only daughter, Julia, gave her a camera on Christmas Eve.
"She went out and converted an outbuilding into a dark room," Ms. Hall said, adding that the photographer's early subjects were domestic servants and their children, plus the offspring of local fishermen. "Soft focus is the description often given to her work."
Mrs. Cameron posed her subjects in a type of glass house commonly used by painters when they were forced by inclement weather to work inside.
"It's not that she needs to add light. She needs to figure out where to remove light and create the shadow. What we all take for granted comes from her work," Ms. Hall said.
By January 1864, Mrs. Cameron had her first success with a photograph of Annie Filpott, a local girl from the town of Freshwater.
First Published October 20, 2010 12:00 am
