A presentation by architect Ismeth Raheem on "Julia Margaret Cameron, Late 19th Century Portraitist - Her connections to Ceylon (Sri Lanka)" will be held at the premises of the Photographic Society of Sri Lanka at the Lionel Wendt at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, October 7. The talk is part of the Society's programme of monthly activities and is open to the public.
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815 - 1879) is one of the now highly acclaimed photographers of 19th century England. Of her short photographic career of 13 years, she spent one fourth in Ceylon. However details of her connection to Ceylon are not widely known, and not many are even aware that her remains lie buried in a churchyard in Bogawantalawa, Nuwara Eliya.
Cameron had links with the pre-Raphaelite art scene in London and associated closely with the Victorian artists and writers. She was a direct ancestor of Virginia Woolf, whose husband Leonard also had a connection with Ceylon. Among the famous 19th century figures who sat for Cameron's portraits were Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Charles Darwin. Her photographic subjects in Ceylon were mainly peasants and plantation workers.
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