Portrait of the Grierson Sisters

For Hill and Adamson, photography was above all an exciting exercise in exposure and a play of lines and forms. Our eyes are drawn to the girls’ hands and long corkscrew curls, which in combination with the Scottish tartan of their dresses make a striking image. The photographic duo produced hundreds of portrait photographs between 1843 and 1847, many of which Hill used as preparatory studies for a painted group portrait of Scottish clergymen.