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Concept
Werner Kissling
Summary
Werner Friedrich Theodor Kissling (or Kißling) (11 April 1895, Breslau, Germany – 3 February 1988, Dumfries, Scotland) was an ethnographer and photographer. His mother, Johanna, was a photographer and she was a central figure in his life. They were both noted for their work in Scotland.
Werner studied the Scottish crofters of Eriskay and South Uist, the farmers and fisherfolk of Dumfries and Galloway, the Māori of New Zealand, and the culture of North Yorkshire.
Kissling was born into an aristocratic, land-owning family but spent his multimillion-pound inheritance and died in a Dumfries care home. In his twenties, as a young German diplomat, he was rich, had social status and apparently had an assured career; he chose to pursue his interests in ethnography and photography.
Kissling is known for the short film Eriskay: A Poem of Remote Lives, which is based on his footage, shot in 1934, of crofting life on the island of Eriskay in the Western Isles. His mother, Johanna, was also a photographer and a central figure in his life. In 1905, she had toured the Western Isles (the Outer Hebrides and St Kilda) and from there 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.
Kissling was born on 11 April 1895, near Breslau in Silesia, then part of the German Empire, today in Poland. Kissling was the second son of a wealthy, aristocratic family of land-owners and brewers. His mother was Johanna Kissling and his father was the great grandson of the founder of the wealthy brewing family, Conrad Kissling KG, established in Breslau in 1835.
Kissling went to school in Breslau and Leobschütz (now, Głubczyce in Poland), spending much of his youth in the 'Marshes', an 18th-century palace in the village of Heinzendorf (now Bagno, in Poland). Bagno Palace was acquired by Kissling's father in 1905, who extended and refurbished the building.
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