Julia Margaret Cameron

Date of birth: 1815 — Date of death: 1875

Photographer. Daughter of James Pattle of the East India Company, Cameron spent her childhood in Calcutta. She moved to the Isle of Wight with her husband Charles H. Cameron, whom she married in 1838, where she took up professional photography. She was a pioneer of art photography and produced distinctive portraits. Cameron admired the work of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. She particularly allied herself with the Italianate art of George Frederick Watts (1817-1904). Her subjects included members of the Brotherhood and other famous figures including Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892). Cameron produced a series of illustrations for Tennyson's Idylls of the King (1874/5). She accompanied her husband to Sri Lanka upon his retirement where she continued to practice photography until her death.