On the occasion of the British presidency of the European Council, La Chambre, a Strasbourg-based photographic association, is presenting through July 29, 2012, an exhibition devoted to the photographic work of Lewis Carroll.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who took on the pseudonym Lewis Carroll in 1856, is far more known and recognized as an author than as a photographer. “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” are books that have been successful since their 19th century releases. It is lesser known that this author was also, for nearly 25 years (1856-1880), a talented photographer, essentially in portrait work, with childhood as his primary subject.

As Brassaï wrote in Les Cahiers de l’Herne in 1971, in an articled entitled Lewis Carroll, Photographer or From the Other Side of the Mirror: “It was on January 22, 1856 that Lewis Carroll asked his uncle Lutwidge Skeffington, whose pictures had greatly intrigued him, to buy him a black view camera for 15 pounds. On March 18, his wish came true. Lewis Carroll was 24 years old, and photography, 17. The collodion process was barely 5 years old.” If at first photography was a past-time that allowed him to do something else besides reading and writing, it quickly became more than a hobby “or any old Ingres violin”, and became a violent passion that consumed him for nearly 25 years. He wrote in his intimate journal on July 15 that “for technical reasons (succinctly, the passage from the collodion process to the dry plate), he was giving up his favorite art form and now would only devote himself to drawing. We will never know if it was for technical or moral reasons (his taste for naked young girls went a bit far for Victorian moral standards) that he brutally abandoned his passion for photography.

During his photographic period, his proximity with artists and writers focusing on Preraphaelites drove him to take several portraits of his friends, painters, writers, scientists and their children. It is this childhood world, specifically little girls younger than ten, that made up the majority of the photographic work for which he is most known. During his earliest photographic experiences, while taking pictures of the cathedral in the Liddell gardens of Christ Church College, he met the three young Liddell girls including Alice Liddell who would inspire Lewis Carroll as his emblematic character ''Alice in wonderland''.

Rapidly, the portrait became theatrical in order to create “Miniature Tableaux”, highly esteemed by the Victorian public, and interpreted by young girls in costumes, disguised as Chinese, Turk, Greek or Roman with particular attitudes. As the conditions were difficult, with shutter speeds lasting nearly 40 seconds, they required treasure troves of patience.
It can be said that his pictures are a true complement to his literary accomplishments.

It is estimated that he took approximately 3000 pictures during this time.

Nearly 1000 prints remain, the others having disappeared or been destroyed after his death, especially his nude photos, taken by his friend Miss Thomson according to his instructions.

For the longest time, Lewis Carroll’s penchant for photography was, voluntarily or not, obliterated. It is Helmut Gernsheim who, during his research about Victorian photography, first identified in 1947 an album of 115 pictures in a London bookstore.

Unnecessary to specify that in 1949, the publication of his book “Lewis Carroll photograper” provoked a real earthquake in literary and artistic circles.

Bernard PERRINE
Bernard.Perrine1@orange.fr

Lewis Carroll
Until July 29th, 2012
La Chambre
4 place d'Austerlitz
67000 Strasbourg
Phone : +33 (0) 388 36 65 38
Wednesday - Sunday : 2pm - 7pm
Friday : 2pm - 9pm