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Take a look at 19th-century England through the eyes of Reverend Charles L. Dodgson, better known as the famous children's author Lewis Carroll. Reflections in a Looking Glass: A Lewis Carroll Centenary Exhibition explores the breadth of Carroll's life and work - presenting a collection of rare original manuscripts, drawings, games and letters. Most importantly, the exhibition includes original photographs by Carroll, who is generally acknowledged to be one of the great photographers of his age.
The photographs on display include portraits of Carroll's family, friends and colleagues, and celebrities of the day - as well as scenes of the Dodgson family home and the countryside around Oxford. It is in his portraits of children, however, that Carroll's talents as a photographer were most fully realized. Though his fascination with children threatens to take on dark overtones in a post-Freudian world, Carroll's imagery of youth is typical of the 19th century, when a shift from seeing children as small adults to recognizing them as developing humans occurred.
Images on view include a beautiful portrait of Margaret Anne Ashley Dodgson, the sixth of Carroll's seven sisters, and one of Carroll's greatest photographs, a portrait of young Beatrice Mary Henley, a daughter of the Vicar of Putney. Other exhibition highlights include such treasures as The Rectory Magazine (an illustrated journal created by Carroll and his siblings), a copy of the first "published" edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, playful pen and ink drawings, Carroll's hand-corrected proof of a paper for his lectures on logic, and rare foreign language editions of the author's books, including Vladimir Nabokov's 1923 Russian translation of Alice.
Reflections in a Looking Glass has made it possible for the Museum to collaborate with other academic units on campus, notably the Woman's Studies, Art and English departments. "It is exciting to pull together a variety of departments and present a show of this nature," states Barbara Matilsky, curator of exhibitions. "In the context of an exhibition, we are able to look at Carroll's abilities as an artist and to have an interdisciplinary dialogue about his contributions to photography."
The Ackland worked closely with Carol Mavor, associate professor of art history at UNC-CH, to bring the exhibition to campus. Mavor, who has an expertise in 19th-century photography and the photography of women, has created an undergraduate Women's Studies class for the fall 2000 semester and is using the exhibition to augment the course curriculum.
An opening reception for Reflections in a Looking Glass will be held on Sunday, September 17, from 3:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. Other public programs in conjunction with the exhibition include a gallery talk with Mavor on Wednesday, September 27 and a day long Lewis Carroll Symposium on Saturday, October 28. All events are free and open to the public.
Reflections in a Looking Glass is organized by the Harry Ransom Humanities Center, University of Texas at Austin and circulated by Curatorial Assistance, Inc. of Los Angeles. Established in 1957, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center is one the world's preeminent institutions for literary and cultural research. The Center is noted for its late 19th- and early 20th-century British, American and French literary materials with additional strengths in photography, art, music, film and theater arts. This exhibition is funded in part by the William Hayes Ackland Trust.
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