Known for her Bohemian-style photography during the 19th century, the bulk of British photographer Julia Margaret Cameron’s works are in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London – but right now you can see many of her pieces in Milwaukee.
On view through July 28, 2024, “Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron”) at the Milwaukee Art Museum, is a rare opportunity to see her photos, explains Kristen Gaylord, the museum’s Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts, because many are in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This is the first solo exhibition in Wisconsin dedicated to Cameron’s work.
Before Milwaukee, the show was at the Museum of Photographic Arts at The San Diego Museum of Art and Jeu de Paume in Paris. After the final stop of the tour – at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City – the photos will be put away for 10 years before going on view again, following proper preservation techniques.
Cameron took thousands of photos over 12 years of her life; the Victoria and Albert Museum owns about 900. “As far as we know, [Cameron] never took a photo without a person in it,” says Gaylord. “She’s such an important, influential figure. She was 48 when she first began making photography.”
Cameron was inspired to take up photography when one of her daughters gave her a camera. Converting a glass-walled chicken coop, she created her own photography studio. She raised 11 children, six of which were adopted, balancing motherhood with an art career.
“She has this very maternal instinct,” says Gaylord, pointing to the photo of Beatrice on a recent tour of the exhibit, which is part of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s permanent collection. Next to the photo is a thumbnail image of Portrait of Beatrice Cenci, a painting by Ginevra Cantofoli during the 1600s and on loan from the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Rome, Italy. It’s thought that Cameron chose a subject of her own to emulate the pose in that famous painting.
“She puts you right into Beatrice’s mind, as opposed to the painting,” says Gaylord. “She was more influenced by painting than she was photography. She did not mind imperfections, like cracks in the [camera’s] glass plate. It was very revolutionary. She inspired generations of photographers.”
Cameron’s soft-focus photography extended to close-up portraits of “everyday” subjects, such as her neighbors, along with well-known artists and scientists, like Alfred Lord Tennyson (also a neighbor), George Frederic Watts and Charles Darwin. Another subject, Alice Liddell, inspired Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. That painting (titled Pomona) is part of the Milwaukee show, as well. “Being in the presence of these great minds was almost ‘holy’ to her,” says Gaylord.
“[Her work is] sort of gently out of focus, very close up. It’s always messy, in a certain way,” Gaylord says. For example, in her famed photo Annie, taken in 1864), “the child’s hair is wild,” says Gaylord.
The exhibit features 90 objects that help tell Cameron’s artistic journey. This includes paintings and other works of art that are part of the Milwaukee Art Museum’s collection and inspired Cameron. Hand-written pages of Cameron’s unfinished autobiography Annals of My Glass House are also on view, providing a glimpse into her life and photography process.
