Lewis Carroll

Lewis Carroll, Brook and Hugh Kitchin, 1876 Carroll´s photographs are the creations of a serious artist, not the sideline of a celebrated writer.

Lewis Carroll is a cherished name to readers of Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, and the other beloved children´s stories that were published under this famous pseudonym. Less well known is that before he became a renowned writer, the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was an important figure in Victorian circles, and one of the most accomplished camera artists of his time.

Carroll began photographing subjects in 1856, the same year he was appointed a mathematical lecturer at Christ Church College, Oxford. To supplement his meager academic income, he made and marketed photographic portraits of distinguished Victorians, such as Alfred Lord Tennyson and the Prince of Wales. Interestingly, Carroll´s artistic career path took the opposite course of most of his colleagues: He went from being an accomplished professional author to a dedicated amateur photographer. The publication of Alice in Wonderland in 1865 increased Carroll´s financial security and gave him the freedom to explore his passion for photography.

Carroll increasingly devoted his photography to works featuring children— especially female children; these images have caused certain and complex preconceptions about Carroll´s attitudes toward children, especially Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice and the subject of many of his most engaging photographs.

The photographs selected for this exhibition highlight their beauty and pictorial sophistication, and help to overturn many modern myths about Carroll and his work.

Pressetext

Dreaming in Pictures: The Photography of Lewis Carroll
Ort: Audrey Jones Beck Building