Clementina, Lady Hawarden
Subtitle: studies from life, 1857-1864
By: by Virginia Dodier ; introduction by Marina Warner ; afterword by Mark Haworth-Booth.
Contributors: Victoria and Albert Museum.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Aperture
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 127
Subjects: Hawarden, Clementina, Viscountess, 1822-1865 -- Exhibitions; Women photographers -- Great Britain -- Biography -- Exhibitions; Portrait photography -- Great Britain -- Exhibitions; Photography of children -- Great Britain -- Exhibitions
Genres: Exhibitions.; Biography
Other titles: Lady Hawarden :; Lady Hawarden
Description: Luminous, demurely sensual, and richly imagined, the albumen prints that Clementina, Lady Hawarden made in her brief career are rediscovered in this first-ever biography. Hawarden was a pioneer photographer of the mid-1800s, when few women received recognition in the visual arts. Upon visiting the 1864 Photographic Society of London exhibition where Hawarden won a silver medal for the superb composition of her photographs, Lewis Carroll wrote. "The best of the life-ones [are] Lady Hawarden's.".

An aristocratic Victorian wife and mother, Hawarden primarily photographed her three eldest daughters amid the sumptuous natural surroundings of the family's estate in Ireland and, most often, in her sun-drenched house in London. Like most women of their day, Hawarden and her daughters were clearly bound by home and family life, but in making these enigmatic pictures they created a world apart.

Drawing inspiration from their dress-up boxes, the girls masqueraded in lavish costumes and acted out mysterious dramas for their mother's camera.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 118-122) and index.
Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in April 1999.