The Frick Pittsburgh Presents For my best beloved Sister Mia: An Album of Photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron

Exhibition features images by one of the 19th century's most acclaimed photographers, including images of celebrated figures of Victorian England

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The exhibition For my best beloved Sister Mia: An Album of Photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron opens at the Frick Art & Historical Center on October 23, 2010. One of photography's early masters, Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879) is one of the best-known photographers of the Victorian era. From the time she received her first camera as a gift when she was 48 years old, she worked to develop the medium and her personal artistic vision. The Mia album features 70 photographs that Cameron compiled collaboratively with her sister Maria "Mia" Jackson. Typical of a family album, the Mia album contains images of family, friends, and neighbors. However, the portraits are posed and photographed in Cameron's distinctive style, which melds the real with the ideal and the ordinary with the allegorical. The Mia album provides insight into Cameron's development as an artist as well as the role of photographs and albums in creating a personal mythology.

The majority of the photographs in the album are by Cameron, including portraits of luminaries such as her Isle of Wight neighbor Alfred, Lord Tennyson and the Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt, however, the album also includes a number of photographs attributed to others, most significantly among them pioneering photographer Oscar Gustave Rejlander.

Julia Margaret Cameron's work will be especially at home at the Frick, which has developed a history of exhibiting photography over the past decade—from contemporary camera artist Vik Muniz to the 100-year survey of the medium featured in the 2009 exhibition Icons of American Photography: A Century of Photographs from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

For my best beloved Sister Mia: An Album of Photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron will also provide an opportunity to look at the various family photographs on site at Clayton, the Frick family home, and reflect on the role of photographic prints and their domestic uses in the late 19th century.

This exhibition features images from the collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg, courtesy of the organizer, art2art Circulating Exhibitions.

The exhibition will remain on view at The Frick Art Museum through January 2, 2011. Admission is free.

Information available at www.thefrickpittsburgh.org

CONTACT: Greg Langel, +1-412-371-0600 x. 524

SOURCE Frick Art & Historical Center