Getty Museum

Katie Morag and Catriona Morrison, Lachina Douglas

Date

1954

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

2f7a736e-2415-458d-aa26-1799b0a007c3

By the time _Un paese: Portrait of an Italian Village_ was published in 1955, Strand was already preparing his next book, based on the people of South Uist, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. After hearing a radio program on the Gaelic songs of the island, he wanted to find out more about this ancient culture and set off to spend three months getting to know the land and its inhabitants. The resulting book, _Tlr a'Mhurain: Outer Hebrides_, was published in 1962 with Strand's pictures accompanied by text from the cultural historian Basil Davidson (1914-2010). The pattern was now a familiar one; in both _La France de Profil _(1952) and _Un paese: Portrait of an Italian Village_ (1955) the writer retraced the steps of the photographer and, putting words to the images, revealed the lives and stories of the native islanders who had previously stood before Strand's camera. A television profile regarding Strand’s 1954 visit to the remote rural community off Scotland's northwest coast described the photographer as follows: >_The man with the camera was a guest of a hospitable race. His record is of their integrity, of the truth of a pattern of life, seen with the artist's precision_ The Scottish portraits, like the French and Italian ones before them, are heroic in nature. According to Strand, the individuals not only represent themselves but also are part of a culture that through its simple yet precarious existence was at risk of being shattered, or worse, eradicated through the pernicious impact of the modern world. When he made these photographs in 1954, the population of South Uist was fewer than four thousand; as of 2011 the population had declined to less than two thousand, perhaps validating Strand’s underlying premise of a threatened community. In this group portrait, three young girls pose against a rock, their overcoats buttoned up against the cold while the wind blows their hair. Each girl looks in a different direction; the one in the center looks toward the photographer, anchoring the composition with her steady gaze and smile. The weathered wall comes to symbolize the backdrop of life—an existence equally as rough as the stones themselves. A stabilizing force in Strand's execution of the image, this support offers a very practical element of an impromptu studio setting and functions as a common denominator. Whether in France, Italy, or Scotland, each wall is an appendage to the existence of the people featured in the photographs, individuals who represent the universal struggle of humanity (see [86.XM.686.2](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106NTM), [86.XM.683.30](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106NRV), [86.XM.683.39](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/106NS4)). getty.edu, Interpretive Content Department, 2008 and adapted from _Paul Strand_, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum by Anne M. Lyden (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 88. ©2005, J. Paul Getty Trust.

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