Werner Kissling

Who was Werner Kissling?

Werner Friedrich Theodor Kissling was an amateur ethnographer and amateur photographer. He left a rich legacy of photographs and film of the traditional customs and crafts of various world communities, a legacy, which today, now forms a remarkable, valuable record of ‘ways of life’, which have now vanished. The communities that he studied include, the crofters of Eriskay and South Uist, Scotland, the farmers and fisherfolk of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, the Māori of New Zealand, and the craftsmen of North Yorkshire, England.

Kissling was an intriguing figure, who, though born into an aristocratic, land-owning family, managed to ‘dispose’ of his multi-million pound inheritance and die penniless in a Dumfries old folk’s home. In his twenties, as a young German diplomat, he was rich, had social status and had an apparent, assured career in front of him. Yet he chose to turn his back on all the privileges that life had afforded him, and pursue his amateur interests in ethnography and photography.

Kissling is best known for the short film, “Eriskay - A Poem of Remote Lives”, which is based on his unique footage, shot in 1934, of crofting life on the island of Eriskay in the Western Isles of Scotland. His mother, Johanna, was a central figure in his life. In 1905, she had toured the Western Isles, and, from there, she had sent a postcard to her 10-year-old son, Werner, back in Germany. When Kissling died, 83 years later, that same postcard would still be in his possession, found in his single suitcase, in his room.