Justification
Acquisition Record
undated document


[transcription]

Cameron, Julia Margaret

b. 1815, Calcutta, India
d. 1879, Ceylon, Sri Lanka

Herschel, 1867 (printed 1913)
photogravure from Camera Work magazine, 1913, vol. 41, page 9
8 3/8 x 6 1/8 inches

Carlyle, 1867 (printed 1913)
photogravure from Camera Work magazine, 1913, vol. 41, page 5
8 1/2 x 6 1/4 inches

Donor: Harry and Ann Malcolmson
Appraised By: Stephen Bulger and Sarah Morthland
Provenance: Purchased by present donor from Jane Corkin Gallery, Toronto, 1991

Artist Biography
Julia Margaret Cameron was born in 1815 to colonialist parents stationed in India. After the death of their parents, Cameron and her six sisters were sent to live with their grandmother in Versailles, France. In 1938, Cameron married Charles Hay Cameron, a jurist and member of the Law Commission who was stationed in Calcutta. In 1863, at the age of 49, Julia's daughter and son-in-law gave her a camera to help occupy her time. She had no formal training in photography and learned the technical aspects primarily through trial and error. In 1874, Lord Alfred Tennyson asked her to illustrate his epic poem Idylls of the King and Other Poems and Cameron produced a major series of narrative photographs to accompany the text. Cameron actively marketed and exhibited her work, unusual for a woman at that time. She organized three solo exhibitions at London galleries and participated in international exhibitions in Europe and the U.S. Her work has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions including recently at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (1998); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1999); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2001-2002); National Portrait Gallery, London (2003) and J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2003-2004). Her work is in numerous distinguished public collections including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; National Gallery of Art, Washington; National Portrait Gallery, London and Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Artist in Context
Cameron sought to frame her photographs as fine art by appropriating the subject matter, composition and motifs used in Pre-Raphaelite painting of her day. Contemporary critics praised her for her interpretive style while she was simultaneously criticized for producing out-of-focus works. While initially accidental, Cameron soon began to seek out this quality, focusing on only part of her subject's face. This was a deliberate aesthetic she chose to highlight the beauty of generalized forms and to simulate painting. The technique was also used to convey the psychological and spiritual characteristics of her subjects, rather than producing a documentary style photograph.

Work Under Consideration
Both works under consideration are excellent examples of Cameron's subject matter that focused on portraiture, often of notable Victorian men of arts, letters and sciences. Cameron's photographs are noted for their extreme intimacy and psychological intensity. They are also typical of Cameron's composition in the close-up focus on the sitter's face, and her out-of-focus style. Herschel is a portrait of Cameron's principal mentor, Sir John Herschel (1782-1871), the leading scientist of her generation who contributed to the development of the processes of photography. In this work, Cameron highlights the monumental form of Herschel's head by draping his shoulders in a black cloth and cropping the image close to his face. Cameron sought to convey his genius in the piercing, liquid quality of his eyes and the white shock of his hair, which Cameron tousled herself. Carlyle is a portrait of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), an essayist and historian. He is portrayed in profile, also with a shock of white hair in dramatic contrast to the dark shadows cast on his face. Carlyle and Herschel appeared in Alfred Stieglitz's Camera Work issue #41, in January 1913, on pages 5 and 9 respectively.

Justification
The Gallery currently has one work by Cameron in its collection. In a little more than a decade, Cameron created a body of work that precisely captures both the individualism and cult of beauty of her Victorian society. Cameron's work was remarkably close in appearance and sensibility to the work of the Pictorialists and Alfred Stiegliz. Her work has ties to the work of Baron Adolf de Meyer, Arnold Genthe, Alfred Stieglitz, Theodore Zichy and John Vanderpant, already in the Gallery's collection. The works are in good condition.

Recommend Acceptance

Daina Augaitis
Chief Curator/Associate Director

Grant Arnold
Audain Curator of British Columbia Art

Research: Emmy Lee
Assistant Curator