Background

Clementina Elphinstone Hawarden (née Clementina Elphinstone Fleeming) was born on June 1, 1822 in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom.

Education

Lady Hawarden was a self-taught photographer.

Career

Clementina Hawarden turned to photography in late 1856 or, probably, in early 1857, whilst living on the family estate in Dundrum, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. A move to London in 1859 allowed her to set up a studio in her elegant home in South Kensington. There she took many of the characteristic portraits for which she is principally remembered. Many include her adolescent daughters Isabella Grace, Clementina and Florence Elizabeth. The furniture and characteristic decor of an upper-class London home was removed in order to create mise-en-scene images and theatrical poses within the first floor of her home. She produced albumen prints from wet-plate collodion negatives, a method commonly used at the time.

Clementina Hawarden first exhibited in the annual exhibition of the Photographic Society of London in January 1863 and was elected a member of the Society the following March. Her work was widely acclaimed for its artistic excellence, winning her the medal for composition at the exhibition.

Her photographic years were brief but prolific. Clementina Hawarden produced over eight hundred photographs between 1857 and her sudden death in 1864. Lady Hawarden's photographic focus remained on her children. There is only one photograph believed to feature the Viscountess herself, yet it could also be a portrait of her sister Anne Bontine.

Works

More photos

• photography

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    1863

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    1862

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Membership

• Photographic Society of London , London

  1864

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Carol Mavor writes extensively about the place of Hawarden's work in the history of Victorian photography. She states: "Hawarden's pictures raise significant issues of gender, motherhood, and sexuality as they relate to photography's inherent attachments to loss, duplication and replication, illusion, fetish."
  
  O.G. Rejlander, a friend and fellow photographer, wrote this "In Memoriam" which was published in the British Journal of Photography (27 January 1865): "worked honestly, in a good, comprehensible style… She also was in her manner and conversation – fair, straightforward, nay manly, with a feminine grace. She is a loss to photography, for she would have progressed. She is a loss to many, many friends. She is an enormous loss to a loving family."

Interests

• She was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

Connections

In 1845, Clementina Hawarden married Cornwallis Maude, 4th Viscount Hawarden. The couple had eight children.

Father:

Charles Elphinstone Fleeming

Admiral Charles Elphinstone Fleeming (18 June 1774 – 30 October 1840) was a Scottish aristocrat and officer of the Royal Navy who served during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Mother:

Catalina Paulina Alessandro

(1800-1880)

Spouse:

Earl Montalt

Daughter:

Isabella Grace

Daughter:

Clementina

Daughter:

Florence Elizabeth

Sister:

Anne Bontine

granddaughter :

Clementina Tottenham

Friend:

Oscar Rejlander

References

• Macmillan biographical encyclopedia of photographic artists & innovators
  1984