Our twin stars

The gift of a camera from her daughter and son-in-law at age forty-eight set Cameron on the path to a fulfilling exploration of photography. She made portraits of her family and friends, including her two grandchildren shown here, in a characteristic soft-focus, narrative style. The painterly quality of Cameron’s work is enhanced by the scratches, dust spots, and even fingerprints preserved on the negatives, an intentional component of her photographic vocabulary. Her photographs were rediscovered and popularized in the twentieth century by Alfred Stieglitz, who admired them for their pictorial, hand-made appearance. (“Highlights from the Collection: 45 Years at the Johnson,” curated by Stephanie Wiles and presented at the Johnson Museum January 27–July 22, 2018) In 1863, Cameron’s only daughter, Julia, and her son-in-law Charles Norman presented her with her first camera. Later she recalled her daughter saying, “It may amuse you, Mother, to try to photograph during your solitude at Freshwater Bay,” the family home on the Isle of Wight. Mostly self-taught, Cameron quickly became conversant with the demanding wet-collodion process, doing so with verve and imagination. Although her career lasted only fifteen years, she produced an extensive body of work containing three distinct groups: portraits of famous Victorian figures, intimate family portraits, and allegorical images, reflecting the popularity of Pre-Raphaelite painting. The hobby quickly turned into a passion. Cameron was a consummate artist, involving herself in all aspects of production from arranging the sitters, preparing the plates, making the exposure, and developing the prints, though she often called on the assistance of her domestic help, which is perhaps reflected in the erratic quality of the final images. Our Twin Stars is a particularly poignant image depicting the artist’s grandchildren, Margaret and Charlotte Norman. The early death of her daughter Julia, who died in childbirth in 1874, led to a series of highly charged, emotional family portraits. It was in 1874 that this print was made and given to her son-in-law, with the inscription, “Our Twin Stars, My Gift to the Beloved Father.” (From “A Handbook of the Collection: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art,” 1998)