Margaret Watkins: Domestic Symphonies

Soap, gloves, a shower hose. Attractive and desirable objects? Absolutely, judging by the photographs by Margaret Watkins.

Born in Hamilton, Ontario she made a name for herself during the 1920s in the world of commercial photography with the staging of everyday objects for the purpose of advertising and through her photography, making them works of art. At the time, Vanity Fair magazine acknowledged her talent and published a two-page spread entitled “Photography Comes into the Kitchen”.

Margaret Watkins: Domestic Symphoniesis an exhibition of 108 photographs dating from 1914-1939 and varying from portraits and landscapes that bear the soft focus, romantic mood and lyrical forms of the Pictorialist movement, to modernist still lifes, street scenes, advertising work and commercial designs, inspired by this passion for music.

The fully-illustrated exhibition catalogue is available in separate English and French editions at the Boutique.

Organized by the National Gallery of Canada.