Photography - Nerissa Garnett

‘Daughter of Bloomsbury’ Nerissa Garnett was forty when she decided to enrol on a photography course. She had tried most artistic mediums by then. After a promising early painting career she had turned to pottery after she started to suffer from painter's block. Photography came later to fill in the creative gaps. It was a move that was to unconsciously echo the path of her ancestor - her great-great-great aunt Julia Margaret Cameron. Cameron had taken up a camera at the age of 44, and quickly established herself as a distinguished portrait artist. However Nerissa’s lack of public exposure meant that she did not share such fame in her lifetime.
Stylistically, Nerissa’s photography is reminiscent of American photographer Sally Mann; suggests Nerissa’s Cousin Julian Bell as he takes me through the collection. “There is a rather enraptured sequence involving Nerissa’s niece and her two girls, which captures her delight at their beauty and her integrity”, he tells me. Such pictures are typical of the open-heartedness of the Nerissa that he remembers, and also demonstrate her creative skill. “Everything that she did came off with distinction”, he says. “These pictures have a natural warmth about them and there is an emotional aura present in the soft-focus of the composition”. This week sees the opening of the first retrospective exhibition of her photographic works at Charleston Farmhouse, to coincide with a display of her art and ceramics which will run throughout June at the Thebes Gallery in Lewes. ER