Monday, July 13, 2009

Julia Margaret Cameron Exhibit



A new exhibit of Julia Margaret Cameron's photography is currently underway at the Portland Museum of Art in Portland, Maine. The exhibit began July 4 and will run through till September 7, 2009.

The exhibition is entitled "For My Best Beloved Sister Mia: An Album of Photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron." The works included in the showing were put together for Julia Margaret Cameron's sister, Maria Jackson (known as Mia). Cameron originally gave her sister the partially filled album as a gift on July 7, 1863, at the beginning of Julia Margaret Cameron's experiments with photography. Over the years, Mia filled the album with many of her sister's most iconic images.

Cameron's portraits are well known for their romantic quality and for their close association with the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Many of the most well-known photographs of a number of Victorian celebrities, such as Charles Darwin and Alfred Lord Tennyson, were also taken by Cameron.

For more information, visit the Portland Museum of Art's website.

For those of you who are aren't able to make it to this showing, the next engagement of this travelling exhibit will be from October 23, 2010 - January 2, 2011
at the Frick art & historical center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Ellen Terry by Julia Margaret Cameron, 1864. Image courtesy wikimedia

8 comments:

Tess Kincaid said...

Her work is fabulous. She was so far ahead of her time in the field of photography. Oh, I would love to see this exhibit!!!

Hermes said...

That photograph looks so modern. She was a fantastic photographer - and I'm so glad she is being featured in an important exhibition - even if I can't see it.

Maggie May said...

I find this totally fascinating. Someone should do a biography of her.
Thank you for sharing this!

Tracy said...

Oh, how wonderful... I've long admired the works of J. M. Cameron--they have a timeless quality. I would love to see this exhibit too. All the great exhibits are so far from where I am though...LOL! Happy Day, Margaret :o)

Margaret said...

They are definitely timeless photographs. Can you believe she took this photograph just one year after she got her first camera?

Rowan said...

Julia Margaret Cameron's work is wonderful, I wish I could visit this exhibition but it ends a couple of weeks before I shall be in New England. I must keep a look out for exhibitions in the UK. And Ellen terry was such a beautiful woman wasn't she?

Owlfarmer said...

Too bad Portland's so far away. There are, however, numerous sources on the web about Cameron, some quite good. There's also an old (1948) biography, Julia Margaret Cameron: her life and photographic work by Helmut Gernsheim, which might be available in local public or university libraries, depending on where you live. I was just talking about her in class this week, so your post was rather timely. Thanks for the heads-up, though!

Hels said...

I agree that photo is very modern and dreamy. I have selected more medieval images for my own article, but I linked to your information about the exhibition for people who live in North America. I WISH I could be there *sigh*

Hels