The authors of a new book about the iconic Julia Margaret Cameron speak to Catlin Langford about her enduring legacy
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79) is rightly considered a pioneer of photography. Born in India, she established her photographic practice while living on the Isle of Wight, inspired by the gift of a camera from her daughter in 1863. Her photographs broke conventions in the period and portray her strong artistic vision and determination. The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) holds the largest collection of works by Cameron in the world. Here, Catlin Langford speaks to Senior Curator of Photography Marta Weiss and Curator of Photography Touring Exhibitions Lisa Springer, authors of the recently published Julia Margaret Cameron: Arresting Beauty.
Catlin Langford (CL): You previously collaborated with MACK on a Julia Margaret Cameron publication which also aligned with a 2015 exhibition. So why this publication, and why now?
Marta Weiss (MW): The 2015 publication was in celebration of Cameron’s bicentenary and accompanied the touring exhibition to Moscow, Ghent, Madrid, Tokyo and Sydney. The exhibition and publication were based entirely on the V&A’s collection, then comprising around 280 prints, and was organised around letters by Cameron to Henry Cole, the founding director of the V&A. The V&A has a very special relationship with Cameron: it was the first museum in the world to collect her photographs in any depth. We acquired over 100 photographs directly from her in 1865. In 1868, Cameron used a space in the museum as a studio. The MACK book focused on this aspect of her practice.
In 2017, the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) collection was transferred to the V&A and featured around 600 further prints by Cameron. Today the V&A holds just under 1,000 works by Cameron, by far the largest collection in the world.
Given the significance of Cameron, we felt there was still plenty of international interest and areas to explore and began working on a touring exhibition where we could exhibit elements from our expanded Cameron collection. Arresting Beauty accompanies this exhibition, giving us another opportunity to introduce further audiences to the V&A’s Cameron collection.
CL: Did the expansion of the V&A’s Cameron holdings enable different narratives to emerge?
MW: Yes, definitely; there are many opportunities for new research. One key thing that came with the RPS collection is Cameron’s unfinished manuscript Annals of My Glass House, essentially an autobiography of her photographic career. While this text has been published before and frequently quoted, to have the original and only existing manuscript in the V&A’s collection has given us a real impetus for examining the text in more detail. With my co-author, Lisa Springer, I have helped prepare an on
