Arts / ‘A real moment in time’ – photographer returns to Shetland 50 years later to open exhibition celebrating Fair Isle knitwear
Chris Morphet says he is ‘over the moon’ at interest in his Allover project
FAIR Isle knitwear and the Shetlanders who wore its famous patterns have been placed centre stage at a new exhibition opening at the Shetland Museum tonight (Friday).
Photographer Chris Morphet was inspired to travel from London to Lerwick in June 1970 after witnessing friend Pete Townshend – guitarist of The Who fame – don a V-shaped Fair Isle jumper at a gig.
After being given an ultimatum by his wife to find a photography project, the then-26-year-old Morphet traversed the length of the UK to find out more about Fair Isle and its jumpers.
He placed ordinary Shetlanders at the centre of his lens, capturing people in Unst, Lerwick, Whalsay and Fair Isle just before the Sullom Voe oil boom reached our shores.
Returning to Shetland this week – now aged 81 – Morphet reflected on the unlikely origins of one of his most famous projects.
“I remember walking around London streets and seeing these Fair Isle jumpers, which would really catch your eye,” he said.
“Then there was this Who gig where Pete [Townshend] was wearing this Fair Isle vest, and I thought ‘I like the look of that’.
“Some time later I wanted to get work as a camera assistant, but my wife told me to stop moping around the house and find something to do, a project.
“I thought about Fair Isle and thought, ‘where the hell is that?’
“I decided I’m going to go to there, whatever it takes.”
Morphet was then a 26-year-old freelance photographer, who took photos at one of the first ever concerts by the Sex Pistols – then sans Sid Vicious – as well as of Jimi Hendrix and The Who.
That may seem like a strange segue into knitwear photography, but Morphet said it was the people – who he refers to as “the stars” of the exhibition – who really intrigued him.
“I made the long journey up on the boat and people were throwing up in the loos,” he said.
“I got to Lerwick and I was amazed at how many people in the streets were wearing Fair Isle sweaters, without any encouragement from me.
“I went around Shetland – I’m still not even sure where I went – and knocked on doors on any houses I could find.
“I would just ask, ‘have you got any Fair Isle sweaters?’”
Morphet trained his lens on whoever he could find donning the patterns as he went, from three fishermen aboard their boat, to two people outside the Fair Isle post office.
Most of the photos in the exhibition are widely available through Getty Images, but Morphet managed to find never-been-seen shots as well – which will adorn the walls of the museum’s Da Gadderie from now until New Year’s Eve.
Self-deprecatingly the photographer says the shots, taken in his early career, “aren’t great masterpieces”.
But he said he liked “how simple they are”, focusing firmly on one or several subjects proudly displaying their best knitwear.
“Nearly everybody I met was fantastic, and they were very proud of their jumpers.
“I think they were also proud that anyone had taken an interest.
“It captures a real moment in time before the oil boom.”
He admitted that he had been “very naïve” when he came to Shetland some 50-plus years ago, having known “almost nothing” about the isles.
Morphet said he left having “just loved the island”, and in the years after they were taken – as he moved on to a career as a documentary film-maker – he was occasionally reminded of his Fair Isle project.
“I got a few odd phone calls from people with quite odd Scottish accents over the years,” he said.
“One phoned up and I couldn’t really understand what he was saying, but eventually got that he was just over the moon about the photos.”
“Nearly everybody I met was fantastic, and they were very proud of their jumpers.” – Chris Morpeth
Fair Isle jumpers are still prevalent all around the isles, and are still a sought-after item for both tourists and locals alike.
Morphet said it was “hard to say” why they have stood the test of time, before adding: “Maybe it’s because it’s a part of Shetland and Fair Isle heritage, but they also just look good – they’re very striking and the patterns are really amazing.”
He is back in Shetland 54 years after his first visit to open his Allover exhibition tonight, before it opens to the public tomorrow.
That came after Shetland Museum’s exhibitions officer Karen Clubb phoned Morphet some months ago with the idea.
Morphet said she was “so enthusiastic” about the project that he could not help but be swept along.
“Her enthusiasm, and from everyone else at the museum, was really great,” he said.
“She said that everybody that gets shown the photos really liked them.
“Their interest is more than I deserve.”
Clubb said she could picture the photos blown up on Da Gadderie walls from the moment she first saw them.
“One of my colleagues in the archives asked if I’d seen Chris Morphet’s work, and started showing me those images,” she said.
“I was just astonished – I just instantly knew that would be fantastic in an exhibition.
“I’ll never forget that day, us sitting around the computer looking at all these photos. I was just saying, ‘oh my God’.
“I knew I just had to speak to this guy.”
She got his number from Jane Moncrieff, who interviewed Morphet for a BBC Radio Shetland programme in 2019.
Clubb and Morphet hit it off immediately as she outlined her plans for the exhibition, with the pair spending almost two hours on the phone together.
“He’s been incredibly supportive ever since,” she said.
“He’s really gone above and beyond for us, telling us the background of the images and what he could remember from them.
“He also negotiated a reduced fee from Getty Images, waved his cut so that we could put this exhibition on.
“And he even sent us a box of negatives that hadn’t been seen before.”
Clubb called Allover “a fantastic exhibition for the community” – with more photography books around the room, and people invited to leave notes about those unnamed subjects.
The community feeling to the exhibition starts at its grand opening tonight, with those included in the photos and their families invited to attend.
Morphet brought two Fair Isle jumpers home to London with him after his project in 1970, and Clubb said they had him post one of them – which had become holey – to Shetland to be repaired.
“It’s just another example of how kind folk have been,” Clubb said.
“It’s going to be great to hand him back a fixed jumper.”
She said Morphet’s visit for the opening of the exhibition, as well as another sit-down interview with Moncrieff at the Shetland Museum on Saturday at 2pm, means his story has now “come full circle”.
“He told me this is by far the most exciting exhibition he has worked on,” Clubb said.
“It really is such a coup for Shetland.”
Allover opens to the public at Shetland Museum’s Da Gadderie tomorrow (Saturday), and will remain on display until 31 December.
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