Getty Museum
Fiddler, Probably Ashland, Kentucky
Creator
Doris UlmannAmerican Photographer · 1882–1934
All works by this person →A New Yorker by birth, Doris Ulmann preserved the rural cultures of the southeastern United States through her photographs. She worked particularly in the "Southern Highlands" of the Appalachian Mountains, creating portraits of the residents. In 1933, she contributed photographs to *Roll, Jordan, Roll*, a book by novelist Julia Peterkin about the vanishing black culture, known as Gullah, of the So
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1928–1934
- Medium
- Platinum print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
- Object ID
- 3d0207dd-d917-4289-ab88-22a9d3fa3b23
Possibly made during one of the American Folk Song Festivals held near Ashland, Kentucky, this portrait appears in one of Doris Ulmann’s proof-print albums at the University of Oregon. Seven images of this musician can be found there, including a view of him that Ulmann posed with her assistant John Jacob (“Jack”) Niles (1892-1980). Other portraits of men performing with guitars or dulcimers are also annotated as "Ashland." The fiddle, probably handmade, is as much the subject of this composition as the face of this "authentic" member of the folk music movement. In the "Mountain Music and Hand-made Instruments" chapter of his *Handicrafts of the Southern Highlands* (1937), Allen Eaton (1878-1962) states that "the relation of handicrafts to mountain music is much closer than one might at first think" ([https://primo.getty.edu](https://primo.getty.edu/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=GETTY_ALMA21140498420001551&context=L&vid=GRI&lang=en_US&search_scope=COMBINED&adaptor=Local%20Search%20Engine&tab=all_gri&query=any,contains,allen%20eaton&offset=0)). He discusses the derivation of local ballads and the gatherings where they were sung, including the more recently organized music festivals and the more traditional social gatherings, like neighborhood picnics, county fairs, and fiddling and singing contests. He also remarks on the variety of handmade instruments that had been passed down in Highland families—dulcimers, banjos, flutes, piccolos, pipes, zithers, horns, and bugles—and describes the fiddle as the instrument "probably played by more people than any other." Judith Keller. *Doris Ulmann*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1996), 94. ©1996, J. Paul Getty Trust.
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