Barbara Morgan (photographer): Difference between revisions
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== Biography == |
== Biography == |
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[[Image:BBM Portrait328.jpg|right|thumb|Barbara Morgan with Graflex - 1940's]]Barbara Brooks Morgan, 1900-1992, is well known in the visual art and dance worlds for her penetrating photographic studies of American Modern dancers [[Martha Graham]], [[Merce Cunningham]], [[Erick Hawkins]], [[Jose Limon]], [[Doris Humphrey]], and others. Her photomontage and light drawings rank among the classic experiments of modern American photographic art. Morgan’s drawings, prints, watercolors and paintings were exhibited widely in California in the 1920s, and in New York and Philadelphia in the 1930s. She became a photographer in 1935 to allow more time for raising her children, and subsequently resumed work in drawing, watercolor, and painting |
[[Image:BBM Portrait328.jpg|right|thumb|Barbara Morgan with Graflex - 1940's]]Barbara Brooks Morgan, 1900-1992, is well known in the visual art and dance worlds for her penetrating photographic studies of American Modern dancers [[Martha Graham]], [[Merce Cunningham]], [[Erick Hawkins]], [[Jose Limon]], [[Doris Humphrey]], and others. Her photomontage and light drawings rank among the classic experiments of modern American photographic art. Morgan’s drawings, prints, watercolors and paintings were exhibited widely in California in the 1920s, and in New York and Philadelphia in the 1930s. She became a photographer in 1935 to allow more time for raising her children, and subsequently resumed work in drawing, watercolor, and painting as well, which continued through the 1970s. <ref>1. Carter (1988), 7</ref><br /> |
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While a student she read from the Chinese Six Canons of Painting, about “rhythmic vitality”– or essence of life force – the artist’s goal of expression. This concept related directly to her father’s teaching that all things are made of “dancing atoms,” and remained a guiding philosophy throughout her life as an artist. <ref>2. Carter (1988), 13</ref> <ref>3.Patnaik (1999), 6</ref><br /> |
While a student she read from the Chinese Six Canons of Painting, about “rhythmic vitality”– or essence of life force – the artist’s goal of expression. This concept related directly to her father’s teaching that all things are made of “dancing atoms,” and remained a guiding philosophy throughout her life as an artist. <ref>2. Carter (1988), 13</ref> <ref>3.Patnaik (1999), 6</ref><br /> |
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Morgan joined the faculty at UCLA in 1925 and became an advocate for modern art when many of her colleagues were oriented to a traditional approach to art. She exhibited her drawings, prints and watercolors throughout California. In 1929, Los Angeles Times critic Arthur Miller states: “One of the finest sets of prints in the show is that by Barbara Morgan, and these chance also to be the most abstract works here. … Miss Morgan serves it with an aesthetic sauce that is not produced in a casual kitchen. So abstract has she become that we see her taking hints from [[Kandinsky]], arch abstractionist of them all.” And in the same year, Prudence Wollet of the LA Times wrote: “For out and out independence, Barbara Morgan has taken the most liberties yet… I contend that this experimenter bears watching.”<ref>4. Carter (1988), 8</ref><br /> |
Morgan joined the faculty at UCLA in 1925 and became an advocate for modern art when many of her colleagues were oriented to a traditional approach to art. She exhibited her drawings, prints and watercolors throughout California. In 1929, ''Los Angeles Times'' critic Arthur Miller states: “One of the finest sets of prints in the show is that by Barbara Morgan, and these chance also to be the most abstract works here. … Miss Morgan serves it with an aesthetic sauce that is not produced in a casual kitchen. So abstract has she become that we see her taking hints from [[Kandinsky]], arch abstractionist of them all.” And in the same year, Prudence Wollet of the LA Times wrote: “For out and out independence, Barbara Morgan has taken the most liberties yet… I contend that this experimenter bears watching.”<ref>4. Carter (1988), 8</ref><br /> |
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In 1925 Barbara Johnson |
In 1925, Barbara Johnson married Willard D. Morgan, a writer who illustrated his articles with his own photographs. Barbara assisted Willard in photographing the modern architecture of [[Frank Lloyd Wright]] and [[Richard Neutra]], including a full documentation of the building of the [[Lovell House]]. Willard saw the importance of photography, which he claimed to be the real modern art of the twentieth century. Barbara continued to paint, feeling that photography was “useful only as record.” In 1927, Barbara co-curated an exhibition of [[Edward Weston|Edward Weston’s]] work with colleague Annita Delano in the UCLA Gallery. Weston’s rich, brilliant prints of Californian and Mexican subject matter “rang the bell” for her. “Yes, photography is an Art!” she proclaimed. <ref>5. Morgan (1964), 10</ref><br /> |
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'''<big>NEW YORK AND THE EAST</big>'''<br /> |
'''<big>NEW YORK AND THE EAST</big>'''<br /> |
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In response to the Leica-illustrated articles, E. Leitz, Inc. offered Willard a job publicizing the new 35mm camera. The couple moved to New York City in the summer of 1930. After one year traveling the east with Willard, Barbara set up a printmaking studio in 1931, and Carl Zigrosser of the Weyhe Gallery exhibited her woodcuts and new lithographs of city themes. The impact of the city, masses of people, traffic, buildings and the east, were in counterpoint to her memories of the Southwest. Out of this subject matter, symbolic forms emerged and she began to paint more abstractly, exhibiting her new work in a solo show at the Mellon Gallery in Philadelphia. <ref>8. Morgan (1964), 11</ref> While at UCLA, Barbara had been offered a scholarship by [[Albert C. Barnes|Dr. Albert Barnes]], so while traveling the east, she visited his art collection in Merion, Pennsylvania. As a form of study, he allowed Willard and Barbara to photograph his entire collection. While photographing a Sudan fertility icon and an Ivory Coast totemic mask, she discovered that she could make these ritual sculptures seem either menacing or benign, simply by control of lighting. This experience of dramatization of controllable meanings by light manipulation became the prelude to “psychological lighting” of dance for camera compositions. <ref>8. Morgan (1964), 11</ref><br /> |
In response to the Leica-illustrated articles, E. Leitz, Inc. offered Willard a job publicizing the new 35mm camera. The couple moved to New York City in the summer of 1930. After one year traveling the east with Willard, Barbara set up a printmaking studio in 1931, and Carl Zigrosser of the Weyhe Gallery exhibited her woodcuts and new lithographs of city themes. The impact of the city, masses of people, traffic, buildings and the east, were in counterpoint to her memories of the Southwest. Out of this subject matter, symbolic forms emerged and she began to paint more abstractly, exhibiting her new work in a solo show at the Mellon Gallery in Philadelphia. <ref>8. Morgan (1964), 11</ref> While at UCLA, Barbara had been offered a scholarship by [[Albert C. Barnes|Dr. Albert Barnes]], so while traveling the east, she visited his art collection in Merion, Pennsylvania. As a form of study, he allowed Willard and Barbara to photograph his entire collection. While photographing a Sudan fertility icon and an Ivory Coast totemic mask, she discovered that she could make these ritual sculptures seem either menacing or benign, simply by control of lighting. This experience of dramatization of controllable meanings by light manipulation became the prelude to “psychological lighting” of dance for camera compositions. <ref>8. Morgan (1964), 11</ref><br /> |
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Barbara Morgan was deeply involved in the [[American Artists' Congress]] from its inception in 1936 and served as an exhibition committee member during [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis’]] presidency of the Congress from 1937-1939. <ref>9. First [[American_Artists'_Congress|American Artists’ Congress]] (1936)</ref><br /> |
Barbara Morgan was deeply involved in the [[American Artists' Congress]] from its inception in 1936 and served as an exhibition committee member during [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis’]] presidency of the Congress from 1937-1939. <ref>9. First [[American_Artists'_Congress|American Artists’ Congress]] (1936)</ref><br /> |
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“The photographers and painters who dealt with the Depression, often, it seemed to me, only added to defeatism without giving courage or hope. Yet the galvanizing protest danced by [[Martha Graham]], [[Humphrey-Weidman]], [[Helen_Tamiris|Tamiris]] and others was heartening. Often nearly starving, they never gave up, but forged life affirming dance statements of American society in stress and strain. In this role, their dance reminded me of Indian ceremonial dances which invigorate the tribe in drought and difficulty.” <ref>10. Morgan (1964), 12</ref><br /> |
“The photographers and painters who dealt with the Depression, often, it seemed to me, only added to defeatism without giving courage or hope. Yet the galvanizing protest danced by [[Martha Graham]], [[Humphrey-Weidman]], [[Helen_Tamiris|Tamiris]] and others was heartening. Often nearly starving, they never gave up, but forged life affirming dance statements of American society in stress and strain. In this role, their dance reminded me of Indian ceremonial dances which invigorate the tribe in drought and difficulty.” <ref>10. Morgan (1964), 12</ref><br /> |
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Morgan conceived of her book |
Morgan conceived of her book project ''Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs'' (1941)- the year she met Graham. From 1936 through the 1940s she photographed more than 40 established dancers and choreographers, and she described her process: |
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“To epitomize…a dance with camera, stage performances are inadequate, because in that situation one can only fortuitously record. For my interpretation it was necessary to redirect, relight, and photographically synthesize what I felt to be the core of the total dance.” <ref>11. Morgan (1964), 16</ref><br /> |
“To epitomize…a dance with camera, stage performances are inadequate, because in that situation one can only fortuitously record. For my interpretation it was necessary to redirect, relight, and photographically synthesize what I felt to be the core of the total dance.” <ref>11. Morgan (1964), 16</ref><br /> |
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'''<big>SUMMER’S CHILDREN AND BOOK DESIGN</big>'''<br /> |
'''<big>SUMMER’S CHILDREN AND BOOK DESIGN</big>'''<br /> |
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Over the years her great interest in children’s growth inspired many camp, school and college photographic jobs, and her own projects, which culminated in the book, Summer’s Children (1951). [[Beaumont Newhall]], of [[George Eastman House]] stated, |
Over the years her great interest in children’s growth inspired many camp, school and college photographic jobs, and her own projects, which culminated in the book, ''Summer’s Children'' (1951). [[Beaumont Newhall]], of [[George Eastman House]] stated, “Barbara Morgan has made her book of universal appeal. Her sensitive photographs, skillfully combined with words, capture the world of youth with heartiness and tenderness, humor and sympathy. ''Summer’s Children'' is a moving interpretation of the magic world of youth.” <ref>16. Magazine of Art p.141</ref> |
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Morgan also designed and photo |
Morgan also designed and photo-edited ''The World of [[Albert Schweitzer]],'' by Erica Anderson, Harper & Brothers, 1955, and made the photographs for ''Prestini’s Art in Wood'', for Pocohontas Press in 1950. |
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'''<big>CONTRIBUTIONS</big>''' <br /> |
'''<big>CONTRIBUTIONS</big>''' <br /> |
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Morgan’s life and art were both infused with this profound sense of energy and purposefulness. “I’m not just a ‘Photographer’ or a ‘Painter,’” she asserted, “but a visually aware human being searching out ways to communicate the intensities of life.” <ref>17. Patnaik (1999), 10</ref> She possessed an innate capacity for close associations and lasting friendships with some of the most creative minds of her time, exchanging letters with [[Edward Weston]], [[Gordon Parks]], [[Margaret Mead]], [[Buckminster Fuller]], [[Joseph Campbell]], [[William Carlos Williams]], [[Dorthea Lange]], [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], [[Richard Neutra]], and [[Charles Sheeler]], among many others. She was a deep and trusted friend of [[Berenice Abbott]], [[Wynn Bullock]], [[Minor White]], [[Ansel Adams]], and [[Beaumont Newhall|Nancy and Beaumont Newhall]]. In 1952, Morgan founded [[Aperture (magazine)|Aperture Magazine]] with Adams, Lange, White and the Newhalls. Morgan exhibited widely, including a second solo show at [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York, and lectured nationally for nearly five decades. She was a guest instructor for the [[Ansel Adams]] Yosemite Workshops in 1970 and 71. At [[Black Mountain College]], she was on the faculty of Art Summer Institute in 1944 with [[Walter Gropius]] and [[Josef Albers|Josef and Anni Albers]], among others. <ref>20. Black Mountain College Bulletin (1944), 9</ref> Her numerous articles in journals, her commentaries on art and photography, and her voluminous, lively correspondence have yet to be studied in depth. “How wonderful to behold a person who has developed all of these capacities because of her practice of living as a whole being,” Minor White wrote in the introduction to a 1964 issue of Aperture dedicated to her work. <ref>21. Morgan (1964), 2</ref> |
Morgan’s life and art were both infused with this profound sense of energy and purposefulness. “I’m not just a ‘Photographer’ or a ‘Painter,’” she asserted, “but a visually aware human being searching out ways to communicate the intensities of life.” <ref>17. Patnaik (1999), 10</ref> She possessed an innate capacity for close associations and lasting friendships with some of the most creative minds of her time, exchanging letters with [[Edward Weston]], [[Gordon Parks]], [[Margaret Mead]], [[Buckminster Fuller]], [[Joseph Campbell]], [[William Carlos Williams]], [[Dorthea Lange]], [[Stuart Davis (painter)|Stuart Davis]], [[Richard Neutra]], and [[Charles Sheeler]], among many others. She was a deep and trusted friend of [[Berenice Abbott]], [[Wynn Bullock]], [[Minor White]], [[Ansel Adams]], and [[Beaumont Newhall|Nancy and Beaumont Newhall]]. In 1952, Morgan founded [[Aperture (magazine)|Aperture Magazine]] with Adams, Lange, White and the Newhalls. Morgan exhibited widely, including a second solo show at [[Museum of Modern Art]], New York, and lectured nationally for nearly five decades. She was a guest instructor for the [[Ansel Adams]] Yosemite Workshops in 1970 and 71. At [[Black Mountain College]], she was on the faculty of Art Summer Institute in 1944 with [[Walter Gropius]] and [[Josef Albers|Josef and Anni Albers]], among others. <ref>20. Black Mountain College Bulletin (1944), 9</ref> Her numerous articles in journals, her commentaries on art and photography, and her voluminous, lively correspondence have yet to be studied in depth. “How wonderful to behold a person who has developed all of these capacities because of her practice of living as a whole being,” Minor White wrote in the introduction to a 1964 issue of ''Aperture'' dedicated to her work. <ref>21. Morgan (1964), 2</ref> |
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First American Artists’ Congress 1936, New York City (1936) |
First American Artists’ Congress 1936, New York City (1936) |
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Mitchell, Margaretta K. (1979) Recollections: Ten |
Mitchell, Margaretta K. (1979) Recollections: Ten Women of Photography. Viking Studio Book |
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Morgan, Barbara (1964) Barbara Morgan, Aperture 11:1 |
Morgan, Barbara (1964) Barbara Morgan, Aperture 11:1 |
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Revision as of 01:17, 24 May 2011
 | This article may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. (May 2011) |
 | This article contains wording that promotes the subject in a subjective manner without imparting real information. (May 2011) |
Barbara Morgan (1900–1992) was an American photographer best known for her work in dance. She was a co-founder of the photography magazine Aperture.
Biography
Barbara Brooks Morgan, 1900-1992, is well known in the visual art and dance worlds for her penetrating photographic studies of American Modern dancers Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Erick Hawkins, Jose Limon, Doris Humphrey, and others. Her photomontage and light drawings rank among the classic experiments of modern American photographic art. Morgan’s drawings, prints, watercolors and paintings were exhibited widely in California in the 1920s, and in New York and Philadelphia in the 1930s. She became a photographer in 1935 to allow more time for raising her children, and subsequently resumed work in drawing, watercolor, and painting as well, which continued through the 1970s. [1]
EARLY TRAINING AND LEARNING
Barbara Morgan’s art training at UCLA, 1919-23, was based on Arthur Wesley Dow’s principles of art “synthesis.” Abstract design was taught parallel to figurative drawing and painting. And art history was taught with equal emphasis on the Primitive, Asian, and European traditions.
While a student she read from the Chinese Six Canons of Painting, about “rhythmic vitality”– or essence of life force – the artist’s goal of expression. This concept related directly to her father’s teaching that all things are made of “dancing atoms,” and remained a guiding philosophy throughout her life as an artist. [2] [3]
Morgan joined the faculty at UCLA in 1925 and became an advocate for modern art when many of her colleagues were oriented to a traditional approach to art. She exhibited her drawings, prints and watercolors throughout California. In 1929, Los Angeles Times critic Arthur Miller states: “One of the finest sets of prints in the show is that by Barbara Morgan, and these chance also to be the most abstract works here. … Miss Morgan serves it with an aesthetic sauce that is not produced in a casual kitchen. So abstract has she become that we see her taking hints from Kandinsky, arch abstractionist of them all.” And in the same year, Prudence Wollet of the LA Times wrote: “For out and out independence, Barbara Morgan has taken the most liberties yet… I contend that this experimenter bears watching.”[4]
In 1925, Barbara Johnson married Willard D. Morgan, a writer who illustrated his articles with his own photographs. Barbara assisted Willard in photographing the modern architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra, including a full documentation of the building of the Lovell House. Willard saw the importance of photography, which he claimed to be the real modern art of the twentieth century. Barbara continued to paint, feeling that photography was “useful only as record.” In 1927, Barbara co-curated an exhibition of Edward Weston’s work with colleague Annita Delano in the UCLA Gallery. Weston’s rich, brilliant prints of Californian and Mexican subject matter “rang the bell” for her. “Yes, photography is an Art!” she proclaimed. [5]
THE SOUTHWEST
Every summer when classes were over, Willard and Barbara loaded their car, the “Packrat,” with painting and photography equipment and headed for the desert. Barbara painted as much as possible for winter exhibits and helped Willard photograph for articles. Willard had two Model A Leicas, with which the couple photographed each other in cliff ruins, climbing Rainbow Bridge, in the Hopi mesas and canyons. The resulting photographs were among the first 35mm images to appear in American magazines. [6]
The Southwest experiences were deeply influential for Barbara Morgan. The stratification of Grand Canyon and Monument Valley attuned her to geologic time; Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings to ancient human time. The Navajo and Pueblo Indian tribes through ritual dance displayed their “partnership in the cosmic process” and connected her to the universally primal. [7]
NEW YORK AND THE EAST
In response to the Leica-illustrated articles, E. Leitz, Inc. offered Willard a job publicizing the new 35mm camera. The couple moved to New York City in the summer of 1930. After one year traveling the east with Willard, Barbara set up a printmaking studio in 1931, and Carl Zigrosser of the Weyhe Gallery exhibited her woodcuts and new lithographs of city themes. The impact of the city, masses of people, traffic, buildings and the east, were in counterpoint to her memories of the Southwest. Out of this subject matter, symbolic forms emerged and she began to paint more abstractly, exhibiting her new work in a solo show at the Mellon Gallery in Philadelphia. [8] While at UCLA, Barbara had been offered a scholarship by Dr. Albert Barnes, so while traveling the east, she visited his art collection in Merion, Pennsylvania. As a form of study, he allowed Willard and Barbara to photograph his entire collection. While photographing a Sudan fertility icon and an Ivory Coast totemic mask, she discovered that she could make these ritual sculptures seem either menacing or benign, simply by control of lighting. This experience of dramatization of controllable meanings by light manipulation became the prelude to “psychological lighting” of dance for camera compositions. [9]
Barbara Morgan was deeply involved in the American Artists' Congress from its inception in 1936 and served as an exhibition committee member during Stuart Davis’ presidency of the Congress from 1937-1939. [10]
PHOTOGRAPHY
With two young children, Douglas born in 1932 and Lloyd in 1935, Barbara sought a workable way to be both a mother and an artist. To abandon painting in favor of photography promised to be traumatic, but for two saving factors; first, an idea for a future book presented itself, and second, photography does not require the uninterrupted daylight hours as does painting, and one might work at night in the darkroom. Although Barbara had exposed thousands of images, she still did not consider herself a photographer because she hadn’t completed the cycle of developing and printing. She set up a new studio with a darkroom at 10 East 23rd Street, overlooking Madison Square, and began experimenting with the technical and darkroom aspects of photography. Systematically, she learned processing from Willard and worked on other gaps in her technique, chiefly with the 4x5 Speed Graphic and Leica with all lenses. She worked with Harold Harvey as he was perfecting his Replenishing Fine Grain Developer 777, and explored photomontage. [11]
DANCE PHOTOGRAPHY
That same year, Barbara attended a performance of the young Martha Graham Dance Company. She was immediately struck with the historical and social importance of the emerging American Modern Dance movement:
“The photographers and painters who dealt with the Depression, often, it seemed to me, only added to defeatism without giving courage or hope. Yet the galvanizing protest danced by Martha Graham, Humphrey-Weidman, Tamiris and others was heartening. Often nearly starving, they never gave up, but forged life affirming dance statements of American society in stress and strain. In this role, their dance reminded me of Indian ceremonial dances which invigorate the tribe in drought and difficulty.” [12]
Morgan conceived of her book project Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs (1941)- the year she met Graham. From 1936 through the 1940s she photographed more than 40 established dancers and choreographers, and she described her process:
“To epitomize…a dance with camera, stage performances are inadequate, because in that situation one can only fortuitously record. For my interpretation it was necessary to redirect, relight, and photographically synthesize what I felt to be the core of the total dance.” [13]
Many of these dancers are now regarded as the pioneers of modern dance, and her photographs as the definitive images of their art. These included Valerie Bettis, Merce Cunningham, Jane Dudley, Erick Hawkins, Hanya Holm, Doris Humphrey, Jose Limon, Sophie Maslow, May O’Donnell, Pearl Primus, Anna Sokolow, Helen Tamiris, and Charles Weidman. Critics Clive Barnes, John Martin, Elizabeth McCausland, and Beaumont Newhall have all noted that Morgan’s work is an unmatched testament, document and interpretation. [14]
Graham and Morgan developed a relationship that would last some 60 years. Their correspondence attests to their mutual affection, trust and respect. In 1980, Graham stated:
“It is rare that even an inspired photographer possesses the demonic eye which can capture the instant of dance and transform it into timeless gesture. In Barbara Morgan I found that person. In looking at these photographs today, I feel, as I felt when I first saw them, privileged to have been a part of this collaboration. For to me, Barbara Morgan through her art reveals the inner landscape that is a dancer’s world.” [15]
In 1945, with sponsorship by the National Gallery and the State Department, Morgan mounted the exhibition La Danza Moderna Norte-Americana: Fotografias por Barbara Morgan – 44 panel mounted enlargements, exhibited first at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, before a South American tour.
PHOTOMONTAGE & LIGHT DRAWING
Pushed by her quest to do more with photography, Morgan “began to feel the pervasive, vibratory character of light energy as a partner of the physical and spiritual energy of the dance, and as the prime mover of the photographic process. “Suddenly, I decided to pay my respects to light, and create a rhythmical light design for the book tailpiece.” [16] She described herself as a “kinetic light sculptor,” creating gestural light drawings with an open shuttered camera in her darkened studio.
Although photomontage was enthusiastically practiced in Europe and Latin America in the 1930s and 40s, it was alien to American photography and widely disparaged. Morgan’s knowledge of the European avant-garde, and her friendship with Lucia and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, furthered her interest in montage. She was particularly stuck by how the genre could capture the multiplicity of modern American life. She worked with themes of social concern, natural and constructed environments, and human dignity. [17]
SUMMER’S CHILDREN AND BOOK DESIGN
Over the years her great interest in children’s growth inspired many camp, school and college photographic jobs, and her own projects, which culminated in the book, Summer’s Children (1951). Beaumont Newhall, of George Eastman House stated, “Barbara Morgan has made her book of universal appeal. Her sensitive photographs, skillfully combined with words, capture the world of youth with heartiness and tenderness, humor and sympathy. Summer’s Children is a moving interpretation of the magic world of youth.” [18]
Morgan also designed and photo-edited The World of Albert Schweitzer, by Erica Anderson, Harper & Brothers, 1955, and made the photographs for Prestini’s Art in Wood, for Pocohontas Press in 1950.
CONTRIBUTIONS
Morgan’s life and art were both infused with this profound sense of energy and purposefulness. “I’m not just a ‘Photographer’ or a ‘Painter,’” she asserted, “but a visually aware human being searching out ways to communicate the intensities of life.” [19] She possessed an innate capacity for close associations and lasting friendships with some of the most creative minds of her time, exchanging letters with Edward Weston, Gordon Parks, Margaret Mead, Buckminster Fuller, Joseph Campbell, William Carlos Williams, Dorthea Lange, Stuart Davis, Richard Neutra, and Charles Sheeler, among many others. She was a deep and trusted friend of Berenice Abbott, Wynn Bullock, Minor White, Ansel Adams, and Nancy and Beaumont Newhall. In 1952, Morgan founded Aperture Magazine with Adams, Lange, White and the Newhalls. Morgan exhibited widely, including a second solo show at Museum of Modern Art, New York, and lectured nationally for nearly five decades. She was a guest instructor for the Ansel Adams Yosemite Workshops in 1970 and 71. At Black Mountain College, she was on the faculty of Art Summer Institute in 1944 with Walter Gropius and Josef and Anni Albers, among others. [20] Her numerous articles in journals, her commentaries on art and photography, and her voluminous, lively correspondence have yet to be studied in depth. “How wonderful to behold a person who has developed all of these capacities because of her practice of living as a whole being,” Minor White wrote in the introduction to a 1964 issue of Aperture dedicated to her work. [21]
References
Black Mountain College Bulletin, Art Institute, (Summer 1944)
Carter, Curtis L. and Agee, William C. (1988). Barbara Morgan, Prints Drawings, Watercolors and Photographs. Milwaukee: Marquette University. ISBN 0871002612
Ewing, William A. (1987) The Fugitive Gesture: Masterpieces of Dance Photography. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd.
First American Artists’ Congress 1936, New York City (1936)
Mitchell, Margaretta K. (1979) Recollections: Ten Women of Photography. Viking Studio Book
Morgan, Barbara (1964) Barbara Morgan, Aperture 11:1
Morgan, Barbara (1941)(1980) Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs. New York, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 2nd Ed. Dobbs Ferry, New York: Morgan & Morgan (1980) ISBN 0871001764
Newhall, Beaumont (1952). Magazine of Art. The American Federation of Arts (March 1952)
Patnaik, Deb P. (1999) Barbara Morgan, Masters of Photography, New York: Aperture. ISBN 0893818259
Chronology
- 1988 Awarded Lifetime Achievement Award by American Society of Magazine Photographers, Washington, D.C
- 1978 Included in book and exhibit, RECOLECTIONS: Ten Women of Photography,International Center of Photography, New York.
- 1978 Received honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Marquette University, Milwaukee.
- 1977 Created BARBARA MORGAN DANCE PORTFOLIO.
- 1975 Received grant from National Endowment for the Arts.
- 1972 Solo Photography Show, Museum of Modern Art, NY
- 1970 Elected Fellow of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
- 1968-88 Prepared major exhibitions and delivered numerous lectures and seminars.
- 1967 Death of Willard D. Morgan.
- 1961 One-person painting and graphics exhibition, Sherman Gallery, New York.
- 1959 Art archeological trip to Crete, Greece, Spain, Italy, France and England.
- 1945 Solo Exhibition Modern American Dance, Museum of Modern Art, NY
- 1942-55 Continued photographic projects and exhibitions. Published second book, Summer's Children: A photographic Cycle of Life at Camp. Picture-edited and designed book by Erica Anderson and Eugene Exman, The World of Albert Schweitzer (Harper & Row, N.Y., 1955
- 1941 Moved to Scarsdale, New York. Published book, Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs. Awarded American Institute of Graphic Arts Trade Book Clinic Award.
- 1935-41 Photographed, exhibited pictures of city themes, dance, children, photomontages and light drawings.
- 1931 Established a studio in New York for painting and lithography. Exhibited graphics at Weyhe Gallery, New York, and other galleries.
- 1935 Son Lloyd was born. Saw Martha Graham perform Primitive Mysteries. Began photographing Martha Graham dances.
- 1934 One-person painting and graphics exhibition, Mellon Gallery, Philadelphia.
- 1932 Son Douglas was born. Continued to exhibit paintings.
- 1930 Moved to New York City. Traveled for Willard's Morgan's Leica Lectures. For study, photographed Barnes Foundation art collection, Merion, Pennsylvania.
- 1928 Willard and Barbara’s interest in modern architecture and design led to meeting Richard Neutra and a lifelong friendship continued. Barbara and Willard photographed construction of Lovell house.
- 1925-30 Joined art faculty, UCLA. Taught design, landscape, and woodcut. Published, Block Print Book, containing work of woodcut students. Served variously as writer, managing editor, and editor for Dark and Light Magazine, Arthur Wesley Dow Association, UCLA. Painted and photographed in the Southwest with Willard in the summers. Met Edward Weston and realized photography as a medium for artistic expression.
- 1925 Married with Willard Morgan.
- 1923-24 Taught art in San Fernando High School, San Fernando, California.
- 1919-23 Student, University of California a Los Angeles, majoring in art.
- 1900 Born Barbara Brooks Johnson on July 8 in Buffalo, Kansas. Same year family moved to West Coast. Grew up on peach ranch in Southern California.
Published works
- Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs
- Summer's Children (about summer camp culture)
- Barbara Morgan- A Morgan & Morgan Monograph, 1972
- Barbara Morgan: Photomontage, 1980
Awards and recognition
- Lifetime Achievement Award of American Society of Magazine Photographers
References
- ^ 1. Carter (1988), 7
- ^ 2. Carter (1988), 13
- ^ 3.Patnaik (1999), 6
- ^ 4. Carter (1988), 8
- ^ 5. Morgan (1964), 10
- ^ 6. Morgan (1964), 10
- ^ 7. Morgan (1964), 10
- ^ 8. Morgan (1964), 11
- ^ 8. Morgan (1964), 11
- ^ 9. First American Artists’ Congress (1936)
- ^ 10. Morgan (1964), 12
- ^ 10. Morgan (1964), 12
- ^ 11. Morgan (1964), 16
- ^ 12. Patnaik (1999), 7
- ^ 13. Morgan (1980), 8
- ^ 14. Morgan (1964), 25
- ^ 15. Patnaik (1999), 8
- ^ 16. Magazine of Art p.141
- ^ 17. Patnaik (1999), 10
- ^ 20. Black Mountain College Bulletin (1944), 9
- ^ 21. Morgan (1964), 2