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Willard D. Morgan

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Willard D Morgan (Photography: Writer, Editor, Educator)

Biography

File:WDM Berenice Abbott port336.jpg
Willard Morgan with Graflex, photo by Berenice Abbott, 1936

Willard Detering Morgan was a man of wide accomplishments in the field of photography and publishing, and his career spanned some of the most influential developments in the history of photography.[1] He was instrumental in introducing the first 35mm camera in the US,[2] was an early Director of Photography at MOMA, and was the first to exhibit the Farm Security Administration photographers. Morgan was also a writer and editor of technical publications on photography (from the Leica Manual, to Ansel Adams’ Basic Photo Series, Photo-Lab-Index, Encyclopedia of Photography, to Encyclopedia Britannica), and was a photo editor at LIFE magazine and later a photo editor at LOOK.[3]

Born in Snohomish, Washington on May 30, 1900 to Morgan and Marie Detering. Known to his friends as Herc, short for Hercules, Morgan was a very large man who stood 6’7” with a corresponding athletic build.[4] Willard died September 18, 1967 at Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville, New York of lung cancer.[5]
[6]


CALIFORNIA
As a teenager living in Pomona, California, Morgan operated a small press out of his home- writing articles, photographing, and editing small journals for youth groups.[7][8]

After graduating from Pomona College in 1923 with a degree in English, Morgan earned his living by writing freelance magazine articles, illustrating the articles with his photographs.[9] He married Barbara Brooks Johnson, a painter on the art faculty of UCLA in 1925.[10] While she helped him with composition, he taught her photography.[11][12] Barbara Morgan would eventually use these lessons to produce photographs of Martha Graham which would earn her a place as a significant twentieth century photographer.[13]

Willard contacted Richard Neutra to discuss the influence of the automobile on architecture.[14][15] The relationship would last a lifetime with Willard photographing all aspects of construction of the Lovell house in the 1920’s, writing articles about it,[16] [17][18] and publishing Richard Neutra on building: Mystery & Realities of the Site in 1951.[19]


35mm PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE SOUTHWEST

Willard with Leica at Bandelier. Photo by Barbara Morgan 1928, taken with their 2nd 35mm Leica

Morgan first saw the 35mm Leica model A camera in 1928.[20] He wrote to E. Leitz in New York City and proposed a trade of two cameras and other necessary equipment in exchange for articles that would feature photographs made by the Leica camera, and would highlight the possibilities of its small size.[21][22]

In 1928, Barbara and Willard Morgan set out to capture the Southwest landscape on film. Morgan used these images to illustrate his articles, becoming the first American photographer to use the 35mm Leica as a professional camera.[23] Morgan was offered a position at E. Leitz, Inc. as a 35mm camera promoter. The couple moved to New York City in 1930.[24]

In 1931, Morgan lectured throughout the United States on the use of the 35mm Leica camera for E. Leitz.[25] During this time, he also redesigned a Leica projector- originally fit to project large format lantern slides or continuous film strips- to accommodate a new 2 x 2 inch slide that would become the standard. He created the E. Leitz publication Leica Photography in 1932 and continued to publicize the Leica camera. He also patented the FocoSlide, a copying device, which was manufactured by E. Leitz.[26] The FocoSlide attachment greatly improved the Leica’s performance in copy and macro applications by allowing the photographer to view exactly what the lens would see without parallax error.[27][28] In 1933, Morgan produced and curated the First Annual Leica Photographic Salon, one of the first 35mm exhibitions to be held outside of a camera club.[29]

Morgan & Lester (Henry M. Lester), Publishers was founded in 1934. Leica Manual was the firm’s first book, published in 1935. Morgan edited the Leica Manual, written and illustrated by specialists in the miniature field. Leica Manual went through 15 editions with over a million copies sold.[30] Gran Manual, a Spanish translation of the Leica Manual, was printed in 1954.

Willard Morgan was also a founding member of the The Circle of Confusion, the first organized group of professional miniature camera workers.[31]

MORGAN AT LIFE
From the onset of LIFE magazine in 1936, Morgan worked as the Contributions Editor for two years. With only four staff photographers,[32] LIFE originally based the majority of photo-illustrations on reader contributions, and Willard’s department solicited and selected those images[33]. He recalls one photographer who came into his office: “Weegee was one that I first found through the contributor department. And I remember he came in there with a pack of pictures under his arm one day and his old worn-out overcoat, and I thought he was a Bowery bum.”[34] Edward Weston and Carl Mydans, were also selected through Willard’s office –the latter would soon become a staff photographer.[35]

In 1938, as “Director of Exhibits, LIFE Magazine,” Morgan was responsible for the first showing of the Farm Security Administration photographs in the First International Photographic Exposition at Grand Central Palace in New York City.[36] FSA photographers Russell Lee and Arthur Rothstein assembled the photographs.[37] In correspondence with Roy Stryker, Willard reflects on the reaction to the exhibit: “Turned out that I had plenty of criticism and some violent reactions from the public. The pictorial and Oval Table Society bunch were down on me and wanted to remove the FSA photos as not being worthy of the Show[38]… Yes, Mr. Bing, the father of the Oval Table Society threatened to pull out of the exhibition because I hung the FSA photos in the next gallery to his pictorial, mostly soft-focus pictures. He could see one of our big enlargements over the partition…so I smoothed out his feathers by lowering your photo so he couldn’t see it from his booth. Even then he kept grumbling about the FSA photos not being worthy of showing.”[39] Edward Steichen wrote an article for U.S. Camera Annual in 1939 commending the show.[40]


MORGAN AT MoMA

File:9950 Barbara Morgan - Beaumont Newhall, Ansel Adams and Willard Morgan in Barbara's Studio.jpg
Beaumont Newhall, Ansel Adams and Willard Morgan in Barbara's Studio. Photo by Barbara Morgan

In 1943, the Museum of Modern Art appointed Morgan the first Director of Photography and the newly established Photography Center.[41] In the October/November MoMA bulletin introducing the Center and its new Director. Willard writes, “Photography has been a natural development of the mechanical age. It is man’s way of showing a world image. With such readily expressive medium, anyone can use the camera- for casual snapshots, for commercial gain, or for the photographs which have more than a transitory value…something possessing greater depth of perception and meaning. It is not my intention to force photography in a narrow or precious direction, but here at the Photography Center to encourage its varied possibilities and affirm its simple honesty. The purpose of the Photography Center is to watch and encourage the best in all photography.”[42] As Director, Morgan focused on an expanded sense of photography with an abiding interest in education. Morgan organized an extensive lecture series. The first, “Standards of Photographic Criticism,” attended by some 250 people was a discussion by critics Bruce Downes, Elizabeth McCausland, and John Adams Knight about the nature and standards of the photo critic’s task.[43][44] Weegee presented a lecture at the Center entitled “Realism in Photography;” Barbara Morgan spoke on “Imagination in Photography;” and a panel consisting of Charles Sheeler, Hyatt Mayer, Paul Strand, and Ben Shahn discussed “Photography and the Other Arts.”[45]

Willard scheduled Ansel Adams to deliver five lectures at the Center.[46] With extensive notes taken at the Adams lectures, Willard convinced Adams to write the books that Morgan & Lester would begin publishing in 1948.[4] The lectures became the basis for The Basic Photo Series, which are the first of Adams’ publications to include the Zone System principles.[47]

Morgan established a lantern slide collection for loans to museums, lecturers and school departments with specific mimeographed notes on “The History of Photography” and “What is Photography.”[48]

In the museum proper, Morgan curated the controversial exhibition entitled “The American Snapshot,”[49] of which a U.S. Camera review states: “Whether we call them snapshots or some other name, these pictures constitute the most vital, most dynamic, and most interesting and worthwhile photographic exhibition ever assembled by the Museum of Modern Art.”[50]

During Willard’s tenure, he actively expanded on the museum’s print collection, adding significant holdings of Farm Security Administration images and Scientific photography, which he found revealed new possibilities to artistic photographers through their technical experiments.[51] In 1964, in a letter to Barbara Morgan, Nancy Newhall states , “At least it will go on record – something too often forgotten – that Herc was the first Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art and helped create the first Center. And whatever mistakes we made, there hasn’t yet been a Center that meant so much to photographers.”[52]


PUBLISHING
Morgan & Lester (Henry M. Lester) Publishers was founded in 1934. Leica Manual was the firm’s first book, published in 1935. Morgan edited the Leica Manual, written and illustrated by a distinguished list of specialists in the miniature camera field. Leica Manual was so successful that it went through 15 editions with over a million copies sold. Gran Manual, a Spanish translation of the Leica Manual, was printed in 1954.

The first Photo-Lab-Index, with Quarterly Supplements, was published by Morgan & Lester in 1939. The new development of synchronizing flash and shutter was first fully explained in Synchroflash Photography, authored by Morgan. In 1940, Morgan published and edited the first edition of Graphic Graflex Photography, a popular technical book on the press camera, which eventually saw its 10th Edition edited by both Morgan and Lester in 1954.

From 1941 until 1943, Morgan was the General Editor of The Complete Photographer, the ten-volume Encyclopedia of Photography published by the National Educational Alliance. The encyclopedia was published as a magazine and was so successful that the venture led to The Complete Photographer Quarterly, and eventually to The Encyclopedia of Photography. The Complete Photographer was an all-inclusive look at the field of photography, from the technical to the artistic. The contributors to the magazine were experts in their fields, and The Complete Photographer today remains a who’s who listing in the field of photography during the 1940s.[53][54] [55][56][57]

While Morgan & Lester were publishing the 10th Edition of Graphic Graflex Photography, they were also publishing Graflex 22, a manual on the 2¼ x 2¼ reflex camera written by John S. Carroll. The Stereo Realist Manual was published the following year in 1955. Edited by both Morgan and Lester, the book was the first to contain actual examples of stereo images in both color and black & white. The images could then be experienced with the enclosed optical viewer. In 1951, Morgan published Richard Neutra on Building: Mystery & Realities of the Site, illustrated with architectural photographs by Julius Shulman. Morgan wrote the photography section for the Encyclopedia Britannica, Book of the Year supplements from 1959 until his death in 1967.

Morgan was General Editor of the Encyclopedia of Photography, a 20-volume edition, published by Greystone Press in 1963.


TYPE AND PRINTING

Willard working in his home print shop, 1950

Morgan also made significant contributions to the field of printing. A member of the Typophiles Club from 1942 until his death, he was not only interested in photographic publishing, but was fascinated by fonts and book formats. Morgan collected Americana type fonts of 1800-1900, contemporary fonts and European type (historical and modern) for 25 years. He studied style and designs of wood and foundry fonts historically, technically and esthetically. Morgan’s collection was the most comprehensive collection in the U.S.A. of American typefaces. It was an inspiration to a new generation of graphic designers when John Alcorn and colleagues at Pushpin Studios embraced the old type for exciting new designs while working with Willard’s sons at their printing company, Morgan Press, founded in 1958.[58] The collection is now housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.[59]

Willard Morgan was the Director of Photography at LOOK magazine through 1945.


FAMILY and FRIENDS

File:High Point292 - Copy.jpg
Willard with his sons, Doug and Lloyd outside their John Weber designed home in Scarsdale, 1945

Willard and Barbara Morgan had their first child, Douglas Oliver Morgan, on May 7, 1932, while living in Gramercy Park. A second son, Lloyd Brooks Morgan, was born on August 3, 1935. The couple lived at 1 Lexington Avenue until 1941 when they moved into a modern house in Scarsdale, New York, designed by Swiss architect John Weber. With a photographic studio and darkroom for Barbara Morgan, a study for Willard, space for a print shop and museum, and a barn, chicken coop and rabbit house, the new house satisfied the diverse needs of the Morgan family. Morgan maintained relationships with Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, Ansel Adams, Margaret Bourke-White, Berenice Abbott, Albert Boni, Julien Byran and many others in the fields of photography and publishing. Willard Morgan died in 1967 and Barbara Morgan died in 1992.

Published Works

External links

References

  1. ^ Jennifer Steensma, The Willard Morgan Archive, Rochester Institute of Technology, 1992, p. 29
  2. ^ Shuter (1995), p50
  3. ^ Steensma (1992 p.85
  4. ^ Ansel Adams, An Autobiography, Mary Street Alinder, ed., New York Graphic Society (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1985) 323.7
  5. ^ "Willard D. Morgan - Personal Chronology," TD [Photostat], Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY.
  6. ^ Stensma (1992), 39
  7. ^ Ibid., 1.
  8. ^ Stensma (1992), 39
  9. ^ Willard D. Morgan, Resume, 20 May 1943, TD [Carbon], Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY.
  10. ^ Casey Allen, "Camera 35 Interview: Barbara Morgan," Camera 35, May 1977, 56.
  11. ^ Ibid., 58.
  12. ^ Stensma (1992), 41
  13. ^ An Unforgettable Photo of Martha Graham, Joan Acocella, Smithsonian Magazine, June 2011
  14. ^ .Willard D. Morgan, "California Drive-In Markets Serve Motorists on the Go," Chain Store Review, September 1928, 29-31.
  15. ^ Stensma (1992), 41
  16. ^ . [Willard D. Morgan], "The Demonstration Health House, Los Angeles, Richard J. Neutra, Architect," The Architectural Record, May 1930, 433-439.
  17. ^ Willard D. Morgan, "An Architect's Warm-Air Heated Health House," Sheet Metal Worker, 11 July 1930, 410-411, 419.
  18. ^ Steensma (1992), 40
  19. ^ Thomas S. Hines, Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture, (New York: Oxford University Press,1982) 101.
  20. ^ Emil G.Keller, The Source of Today's Thirty-Five Millimeter Photography (Millbrook: N.Y. Butts Hollow Services, 1986), Chap 8.
  21. ^ Willard D. Morgan, Echo Park Los Angeles Ca, to(Advertising Manager, E. Leitz, New York, N.Y.) May 3 1928, Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY. File 31.1, AB
  22. ^ Michael Shuter, The Willard Morgan Archives, Rochester Institute of Technology, 1995, p46
  23. ^ Willard D. Morgan, Echo Park Los Angeles Ca, to(H. Wechsler Vice-President and Sales Manager E. Leitz New York, N.Y.) Nov- 17 1928, Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY. File 31.1, Box AC.
  24. ^ Shuter (1995), 50
  25. ^ Leica Demonstration Lecture Given by Willard D. Morgan. 1930 Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY. File 31.8 Box AC
  26. ^ Shuter (1995), p.57
  27. ^ Emil G.Keller, The Source of Today's Thirty-Five Millimeter Photography (Millbrook: N.Y. Butts Hollow Services, 1986), Chap 7.
  28. ^ Shuter (1995), p50
  29. ^ Stensma (1992), 62
  30. ^ Shuter (1995) p.105
  31. ^ . Manuel Komroff, "The Circle of Confusion pioneer 35mm group still flourishes," Leica Photography, #3 1961, 19-21.
  32. ^ . Masthead, LIFE, 23 November 1936, 7-
  33. ^ Willard D. Morgan, interview by Alex Groner for TIME, Inc., 21 March 1956, TMs, Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY. 1-3.
  34. ^ Morgan, interview, 6.
  35. ^ Masthead, LIFE, 9 August 1937, 15.
  36. ^ ."Modern Photography on Parade, The First International Photographic Exposition, Grand Central Palace, New York City, N.Y.," [1938], Roy Stryker Collection, Photo Archives, Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville.
  37. ^ "Copy of worksheets used by Russell Lee and Arthur Rothstein to assemble the show,"[1938], TD, Roy Stryker Collection, Photo Archives, Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville.
  38. ^ Willard D. Morgan to Roy Stryker, 14 February 1964, TL, Roy Stryker Collection, Photo Archives, Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville.
  39. ^ Willard D. Morgan to Roy Stryker, 25 February 1964, TL, Roy Stryker Collection, Photo Archives, Ekstrom Library, University of Louisville.
  40. ^ Edward Steichen, "FSA Photograhers, " 1939 U.S. Camera Annual, 43.
  41. ^ . Press Release, "Museum of Modern Art Opens Photography Center on West 54th Street," [1944], Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY.
  42. ^ Bulletin, "The Museum of Modern Art Annex Photography Center 9 West 54th Street," October/November 1943, Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY. 4
  43. ^ Lecture Invitation, The Museum of Modern Art, 20 March 1944, Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY.
  44. ^ Willard D. Morgan to Norris Harkness, 24 March 1944, TL [Carbon], Newhall Years, Photography Study Center, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
  45. ^ Willard D. Morgan to Ben Shahn, 14 April 1944, TL[Carbon], Newhall Years, Photography Study Center, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
  46. ^ Willard D. Morgan to Ansel Adams, 1 March 1944, TL [Carbon], Newhall Years, Photography Study Center, Museum of Modern Art, New York.
  47. ^ ."Notes on Ansel Adams Lectures Delivered at The Photography Center on May 17, 19, 22, 24 & 26, 1944," TD, Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY.
  48. ^ Willard D. Morgan, "Budget for Photography Department, Museum of Modern Art, 1943-1944," 11-14 May 1943, TD [Carbon], Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY.
  49. ^ Willard D. Morgan to Dr. Walter Clark, 31 March 1944, TL [Carbon], Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY.
  50. ^ ."The American Snapshot, Modern Museum's Idea of the Folk Art of the Camera is a Bit Hard to Swallow," U.S. Camera, May 1944, 36.
  51. ^ Willard D. Morgan, "Budget for Photography Department, Museum of Modern Art, 1943-1944," 11-14 May 1943, TD [Carbon Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY. 4.
  52. ^ Nancy Newhall to Barbara Morgan, 11 September 1964, TL, Morgan Archive, Westchester County, NY.
  53. ^ Willard D. Morgan, "The View Finder" The Complete Photographer 1 (September 20, 1941):i-iv.
  54. ^ Ansel Adams, "Architectural Photographs" The Complete Photographer 4&5 (October 20,1941 & October 30, 1941): 260-274.
  55. ^ . Edward Weston, "Portrait Photography" The Complete Photographer 45 (December 10, 1942): 2935-2940.
  56. ^ Harold Harvey , "Development-Background" The Complete Photographer 19&20 (March 20, 1942 & March 30, 1942):1245 1281.
  57. ^ David B.Eisendrath, "Carrier Pigeons for Newspaper Photography" The Complete Photographer 11 (Dec. 30, 1941): 659-665
  58. ^ American Wood Type, 1828–1900: Notes on the Evolution of Decorated and Large Types and Comments on Related Trades of the Period. 1977 /1st Paperback Printing New York: Da Capo Press. 224.
  59. ^ Harris, Elizabeth M. The Fat and the Lean, American Wood Type in the 19th Century. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1983.
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