Tir a'Mhurain

by Paul Strand

Tir a'Mhurain

£25.00

‘Paul Strand is one of those photographers who have established not just a body of work but a way of seeing. His prints encourage the eye to take an apparently endless journey’ – The Times Literary Supplement

Tir a’Mhurain is a collection of photographs that reflects the impressions gathered by Paul Strand and his wife Hazel during their 3-month visit to the Hebrides in 1945. Juxtaposing people and landscape, Strand’s beautifully sequenced photographs depict the perfect complicity he saw between nature and habitation in their wild terrain. Whether it is a view of the rocks and the sea or a grinning shepherd boy; scuddling clouds hanging over seaside house or the wrinkled face of an old lady framed by a knitted shawl, Strand’s images transcend the ephemeral. This extended portrait captures the essence and complexity of a singular place. This is a true masterpiece of photography.

Paul Strand was born in New York City in 1890. He began photographing at the age of 18 while a student at the Ethical Culture High School. In 1945 the Museum of Modern Art devoted its first one-person photography exhibition to Strand’s work. Two years later he collaborated with Nancy Newhall on a project that was published as Time in New England, the first of his many innovative photography books. In 1967 he was awarded the David Octavius Hill Medal. He died in France in 1976.