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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In

Francesca Woodman, House #3, 1976.

Mar 21 – June 16, 2024
St. Martin's Pl, Charing Cross, London WC2H 0HE, UK

Francesca Woodman lures us in once again. Her haunting song—by turns enchanting, beguiling, slippery, and dangerous—is arising in London, where the National Portrait Gallery features her work in a joint exhibition with the Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. Living a century apart, Woodman in America and Italy in the late–20th century and Cameron in the U.K. and Sri Lanka in the 19th, both women pushed the boundaries of portraiture, incorporating personal ideas of beauty and storytelling into their work. Woodman’s early death, at 22, was devastating to family and friends, and a loss for art, but her artistry—that incredible vitality—has placed her in the canon, where she so clearly belongs. More than 160 rare vintage prints by Woodman and Cameron are in the exhibition. —Sarah Hyde

Photo: © Woodman Family Foundation/DACS, London