Julia Stephen: Pre-Raphaelite Muse and Mother of Virginia Woolf

A new exhibition at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery in Bradford, titled 'Pre-Raphaelites Reframed', reconsiders the legacy of Julia Stephen (née Jackson), a muse for Pre-Raphaelite artists and mother of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. The show, on view from 28 March to 31 December 2026, features over fifty portraits of Stephen by her aunt, pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron, as well as works by Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, and George Frederic Watts. Curated with input from the local LGBTQ+ community, the exhibition reframes Pre-Raphaelite art through contemporary perspectives on body, identity, and representation. Stephen's life was marked by tragedy: her first husband died in 1870, and she later married Leslie Stephen, a literary critic. She wrote 'Notes from Sick Rooms' in 1883, a practical guide to caregiving. Her daughters, Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell, responded to her legacy in their work: Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse' is a fictionalized portrait of her mother, while Bell rejected narrative painting in favor of Post-Impressionism. The exhibition also highlights other women artists and muses, including Jane Morris and Elizabeth Siddal.