Artists: Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron was an important nineteenth-century photographer, and an outstanding portraitist. She used her camera to create artistic photographs that manipulated light and focus in innovative and intriguing ways. The following websites offer reproductions of her photographic works:

Cameron life and works at the Getty Museum
(http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artMakerDetails?maker=2026)

Julia Margaret Cameron photograph at the George Eastman House
(http://www.eastman.org/ne/mismi3/cameron_sld00001.html)

Thinking about Art: Censorship: Robert Mapplethorpe
Despite the right to freedom of speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, censorship has a long history in the U.S. The controversy surrounding the Mapplethorpe exhibition is by no means the beginning of the struggle concerning art and freedom of expression. U.S. publishers had to defend their right to release many of modernity's most important authors, including James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence, because of accusations of indecency. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has come under constant attack in the past two decades for government funding of artists who address issues of sex, gender and religion in controversial ways. The advent of the Internet has unleashed new calls for moderation and control of material available online on the basis of its "decency." For more information concerning censorship issues, check out the websites listed below:

Freedom of Expression and the NEA
This website provides a well-balanced introduction to the challenges faced by the NEA as they relate to support for artistic freedom and public funding for the arts in general.
(http://www.csulb.edu/~jvancamp/intro.html)

For more information on Robert Mapplethorpe, along with selections of his work online, check out:

The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation
(http://www.mapplethorpe.org)