Julia Margaret Cameron - Alfred Lord Tennyson, June 3, 1870

Maker: Julia Margaret Cameron 1815-1879
Nationality: UK
Medium: albumen print
Size: 11 7/8 in x 9 3/8 in
Location: UK

Object No. 2009.106
Shelf: A-64

Publication: Beaumont Newhall, Photography, A Short Critical History, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1937, pl 39
Lecuyer, Raymond: Histoire de la Photographie, Baschet Et Cie, Paris, 1945, pg 88
J. Cox and C. Ford, Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs, J. Paul Getty Museum, cat. no. 810, p. 359, there a carbon print
Gernsheim 1948, pl 52
Woolf and Fry 1973 pl 38
Gernsheim 1975 p 93
Bruson 1980 pl 2
Weaver 1984, p 99
Lukitsh 1986 p 48
Mathews, 1973, pl 102
Alan Thomas, Time In A Frame: Photography and the Nineteenth Century Mind,Schocken Books, New York, pg 66
Photography: An Independent Art, Mark Haworth-Booth, V & A Publications, London, 1997, pg 85
Victorian Panorama, Alexander Gallery, London, 1976, Pl 70
Helmut Gernsheim, The Rise of Photography 1850-1880, The Age of Collodion, Thames and Hudson, London, 1988, pg 37
Helmut Gernsheim, Masterpieces of Victorian Photography, Phaidon Press, London, 1951, pl 48

Other Collections: GEH, V & A, AIC, MMA, NPG, RPS, UCLA,

Provenance: Christie's New York, Photographs, October 17, 2006, lot 134

Notes: signed by the artist, the sitter, dated, copyright annotation 'From Life Registered Photograph' in ink and Colnaghi blindstamp (on the mount)

Exhibited in Photographs from the Collection of Gary and Barbara Hansen, The Saint Louis Art Museum, June 23-August 9, 1987

Born in Calcutta in 1815 into an affluent family, Julia Margaret Cameron did not begin her photographic career until 1864, shortly after the early retirement of her husband Charles from the East India Company. The family eventually settled on the Isle of Wight where her daughter Julia presented her with a camera. After a number of months spent mastering her new 'toy' (converting her henhouse into a darkroom along the way), Cameron felt confident enough to persuade her family, friends and employees to pose for her quite extraordinary photographs.

Cameron's career coincided with a furious debate over the role of photography. Was it to be used as a means of artistic expression or just as a slavish recorder of nature? Cameron, characteristically, ignored the issue altogether, instead using her camera to 'ennoble Photography and secure the uses of High Art by combining the real and Ideal and sacrificing nothing of the Truth by all possible Devotion to Poetry and Beauty'.

While her work, particularly the portraits, received modest critical acclaim, they were faulted for their technical imperfections, particularly her rejection of conventional focus and her complete disregard for the unexpected behavior of photochemistry resulting in prints with broad tonal ranges.

Undaunted by her detractors, Cameron exhibited tirelessly throughout her short career and was represented by one of the foremost London galleries, Colnaghi - then also the most prominent photographic publishing agency. Moreover, Cameron was one of the first photographers to take advantage of the Copyright Bill of 1862, registering over five hundred images from 1864-1875.

Cameron's work has never fallen out of fashion, like that of so many of her then more illustrious contemporaries. It has retained an immediacy and freshness due to her frank gaze and impressionistic techniques. And we continue to be enchanted by the very Victorian qualities of spirituality, self-confidence and unabashed sentiment which infuse these photographs. Whether portraits of the famous men she counted as friends, idyllic tableaux with angelic children or beautiful women playing madonnas, queens or Arthurian heroines, they all display qualities of a more innocent age.

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Taken on: February 2, 2011

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Sets appears in: • Alfred Lord Tennyson • Writers more » • Collection Highlights • 1870s • Julia Margaret Cameron • Albumen Print Era Begins • UK Portraits • Albumen Prints « less

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