“Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage.”

Description
When 19th-century upper-class Englishwomen grew bored with dancing, china painting and other socially acceptable pastimes, they transformed a still-new technology—photography—into a pioneering form of social networking. “Playing with Pictures” surveys the collages they made by placing aristocratic friends' and relatives' photos in imaginary watercolor scenes, often grafting their faces onto playing cards or animal bodies. While it's fun to examine these inventions in person, viewers may derive as much pleasure from the show's many high-res digital versions of complete albums, which let us appreciate every detail of these women's proto-surreal witticisms. Through Jan 3.—Lauren Weinberg