Sarah Angelina Acland: first lady of colour photography, 1849-1930

Abstract

Sarah Angelina Acland (1849-1930) is one of the most important photographers of the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. Daughter of the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford, she was photographed by Lewis Carroll as a child, along with her close friend Ina Liddell, sister of Alice of 'Wonderland' fame. The critic John Ruskin taught her art and she also knew many of the Pre-Raphaelites, holding Rossetti's palette for him as he painted the Oxford Union murals. At the age of nineteen she met the photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, whose influence is evident in her early work. Following in the footsteps of Cameron and Carroll Miss Acland first came to attention as a portraitist, photographing the illustrious visitors to her Oxford home. In 1900 she then turned to the fledgling field of colour photography. Specializing in the 'Sanger Shepherd process', she became the leading colour photographer of the day.