Doubling. "Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In," National Portrait Gallery, 2024
National Portrait Gallery
St Martin’s Place, London
Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron frequently used doubling in their photographs. For Cameron, posing pairs of models was often a visual strategy used in her enactments of biblical and mythical narratives. Woodman’s pairs often mimic or mirror an environment or another figure, suggesting a body double or stand-in that complicates the idea of self-portraiture. Both artists were likely familiar with the art-historical associations of doubling or twinning. Twins have been ever-present in classical mythology and history painting and were a prominent curiosity in nineteenth-century literature, art and science. And the early twentieth-century Surrealists—after Cameron’s time but very much an influence on Woodman—often used doubles to represent the uncanny and explore the conscious and unconscious.
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