A 19th-century trailblazer who continues to affect and inspire today, Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs are on exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum until September 14th. Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron shows an extensive collection of Julia Margaret Cameron’s photographs. Nearly an oeuvre of her auteurism that transformed photography into an expressive art form, the exhibition presents Cameron’s narrative and evocative aesthetics as she photographed people, but not just for documentation. The theatrics or art form are seen in her photography, which tells stories of biblical studies, heroines, the Irish immigrant, virginity, and the women of her time.
Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron presents the artist and her photographs with incredible breadth spanning a decade and some years of Cameron’s life as she employed her camera and vision. Cameron’s practice was precisely one of arresting beauty, both in her capture and now in our viewing experience. With a narrow plane of focus and texture unique to wet plate photography, Cameron arrested the beauty, character, and aura of the Victorian women and men who sat as her subjects in each print. Now, on exhibition, the beauty of Cameron’s photographs arrests us again in her bounty of work and tender captures.
Blake Sterling
Julia Margaret Cameron : Arresting Beauty
Until September 14, 2025
The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave.
New York, NY 10016
www.themorgan.org
