Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs presents an exhibition of portraits by 19th century Julia Margaret Cameron on view from October 4 through November 18, 2011.
Julia Margaret Cameron, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Albumen print from a wet collodion negative, 1868, 35.5 x 26.3 cm. Photo: Courtesy Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs.
Julia Margaret Cameron marks the first time in more than a dozen years that an exhibition of her work has been shown in New York City. More than 20 albumen prints from 1864 to 1874 will be on view. Most of the photographs were gifts from the artist to her niece, Adeline Maria Jackson; they have remained in the family ever since and have never been exhibited. A fully illustrated catalogue by the photographic historian Dr. Larry J. Schaaf will accompany the exhibition.
Among the 19th century’s greatest portraitists, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) began her career in photography at the age of 48 when she received a camera as a gift from her daughter. She created the majority of her work at her home in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, an island in the English Channel. Cameron moved in the highest circles of Victorian society and counted artists, writers, and scientists among her close friends. Her famous portrait subjects included the astronomer Sir John Herschel, the naturalist Charles Darwin, the Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle, and the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
