High Art Photographer among the Painters: Julia Margaret Cameron, George F. Watts, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti in Mid-Victorian Visual Culture of Beauty

Julia Margaret Cameron

NEW PALTZ — The work of the Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) has recently been the object of considerable scholarly research, ranging from the Getty Museum’s 2003 production of a complete catalogue of her images, a new biography, and the publication of exhibition catalogues and theoretical interpretations. Much of this research has examined Cameron’s distinctive use of light and camera lens focus, and her sensual imagery of children.

Joanne Lukitsh will take a different approach by examining the continuities of Cameron’s style, subject, and form with the drawings and paintings of George Watts and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Cameron was especially close to Watts, but was also a member of Rossetti’s circle; both Watts and Rossetti owned Cameron photographs and stated their admiration for her images. While recent scholarship has argued for the distinctiveness of Cameron’s artistic transformation of the photographic medium, Lukitsh’s talk will explore Cameron’s affiliations with these two painters and examine issues of the mid-Victorian cultural context common to all three artists.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Professor Lukitsh’s lecture is sponsored by the Art History Association, a funded member of the Student Association.

Wednesday – February 27 – 2008
7:00 p.m.
Honors Center
College Hall

Speaker
Joanne Lukitsh
Professor of Art History
Department of Critical Studies
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Boston

Free and open to all

For additional information call (845) 257-3872