For those familiar with the work of Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron, it’s not immediately obvious why the National Portrait Gallery has brought these two photographers together. Woodman's art emerged during the rise of second-wave feminism and Post-Minimalism, her images haunted by the influence of contemporaries like Ana Mendieta and Deborah Turbeville. Cameron’s work, meanwhile, is distinctly Victorian. The soft focus of her photographs evokes a heavily Christian, English sensibility of feminine beauty; her female sitters often idealised as wives and mothers. Spanning a century and continents apart, there is no direct lineage between Cameron and Woodman’s photo-making – at least, not one Woodman ever directly references.
Despite these disparities, 'Portraits to Dream In' boldly argues for a radical reassessment of each woman's work. It’s Woodman from whom the show derives its title – photographs should be 'places for the viewer to dream in,' she declares. Eschewing biographical and historicist tradition, it’s precisely this dreamlike quality to their photos that curator Magdalene Keaney uses to connect their photographs; ethereal, spectral, lyrical.
