From the Alleghenies to the Hebrides

Margaret Fay Shaw's life spans a century of change. Leaving home and school in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia aged 16, she crossed to Scotland to spend a year at school near Glasgow. It was there that her love for Scotland was born. After studying music in New York and Paris she returned to live for six years with two sisters in South Uist. Life on the island had changed little from previous centuries, and material comforts were few. But the island was rich in music and tradition, and Margaret Fay Shaw's collections of Gaelic lore and song are amongst the most important made this century, whilst her photography evocatively captures the aura of a vanished world.