Gun Margoth Moberg (8 May 1941 – 31 October 2007) was a Swedish photographer and artist who worked in Scotland. Her work includes photographs featuring the Orkney,

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

, and

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

Biography

Gunnie Moberg was born on 8 May 1941 in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

, Sweden. Her father Åke Moberg was an accountant, and her mother Margot Lundblad was an amateur painter. Gunnie left school at the age of 16 in order to pursue artistic photography. She began by working at a photographer's studio in Gothenburg but moved to Edinburgh, Scotland a year later. In Edinburgh she worked as an au pair and studied pottery at the

Edinburgh College of Art Edinburgh College of Art (ECA) is one of eleven schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Tracing its history back to 1760, it provides higher education in art and design, architecture, histor ...

, where she met Californian artist Tam MacPhail. They married in January 1961 and had four sons. They initially settled in Argyll, but later moved to Orkney in 1976, after Gunnie Moberg's visit in 1975. Her husband ran a bookshop in

Stromness Stromness (, non, Straumnes; nrn, Stromnes) is the second-most populous town in Orkney, Scotland. It is in the southwestern part of Mainland Orkney. It is a burgh with a parish around the outside with the town of Stromness as its capital. E ...

called 'Stromness Books & Prints', which published her first photography book in 1979. Between 1977 and 1979, the

St Magnus Festival The St Magnus International Festival is an annual, week-long arts festival which takes place at midsummer on the islands of Orkney, off the north coast of mainland Scotland. History and management The festival was founded in 1977 by a group inc ...

and the Pier Arts Centre were established. The St Magnus Festival appointed her photographer in residence; a role that she held for nearly thirty years. Her popularity as a photographer grew over time, but in later years she turned to painting. She died at the age of 66 in Stromness.

Artistic work

Morberg's first publication was '' Stone Built'' in 1979. In this book, the photographer collected 18 aerial pictures she took across Orkney. She subsequently published a number of photography books. Her main subjects were the landscapes of the North Atlantic. In 1986 Moberg started a collaboration with the poet

George Mackay Brown George Mackay Brown (17 October 1921 – 13 April 1996) was a Scottish poet, author and dramatist with a distinctly Orcadian character. He is widely regarded as one of the great Scottish poets of the 20th century. Biography Early life and caree ...

. Together, they published five books in which Moberg's photographs interweaved with George Mackay Brown's poetry. She also collaborated with the Norwegian author Liv Kjørsvik Schei. This collaboration gave birth to ''The Orkney Story'' (1985) and ''The Shetland Story'' (1988).

Publications

* 1979: ''Stone Built''. Stormness Books & Prints * 1985: ''The Orkney Story''. Batsford Grøndahl. * 1986: ''The Loom of Light''. Balnain Books * 1987: ''Stone''. Kulgin Duval & Colin Hamilton. * 1987: ''A Celebration for Magnus''. Balnain Books. * 1988: ''A Portrait of Orkney''. John Murray. * 1990: ''A Bit of Crack and Car Cultur''e. Balnain Books. * 1991: ''The Faroe Islands''. John Murray. * 1991: ''The Shetland Story''. Batsford. * 1996: ''Orkney Pictures & Poems''. Colin Baxter. * 1998: ''Orcades''. Editions Apogée * 2000: ''The Island of Orkney''. Colin Baxter. * 2002: ''St Magnus Festival. A Celebration''. Orcadian. * 2006: ''Orkney''. Birlinn. * 2006: ''The Shetland Islands''. Colin Baxter.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Moberg, Gunnie 1941 births 2007 deaths 20th-century women photographers Alumni of the Edinburgh College of Art Swedish women photographers Swedish women artists People from Gothenburg 20th-century Swedish women