Photography of Barbara Morgan


	Photography of Barbara Morgan In Celebration of the Artist's 100th Anniversary Barbara Brooks Morgan, born in 1900, is an American treasure who is well known in the visual art and dance worlds for her penetrating photographic studies of American Modern dancers such as Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and José Limón. In her series of dance photographs, Morgan captured the essence of modern dance and created timeless documents that are, at the same time, brilliant artistic images in two-dimension. Morgan was equally adept at portraiture as well as manipulating disparate elements into new multi-layered images, or photomontage. Her photomontage and light drawings push the art of photography beyond that of simply a tool that records a scene or event. Her abstract montage works demonstrate Morgan's grasp of the scientific properties of the medium and her ability to stretch the limits of photography to create exciting, kinetic imagery. Though Morgan's drawings, prints, watercolors and paintings were widely exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, she turned to photography in 1935 to allow more time in raising her children. As an artist, Morgan immediately distanced herself from "pure photography" and began experimenting. With her camera, she explored the photographic medium through a wide range of methods such as montage, double exposure and extended time exposure. The resulting black-and-white prints Morgan produced in the 1930s and 1940s rank among the classic experiments of Modern American photographic art. Morgan's photographs fall into two important areas in the history of photography: Expressionist and manipulated image photography. Photographic meaning for expressionist photography extends beyond the photograph and becomes a symbol expressing personal vision and cultural values. Thus photography from an Expressionist's point of view is not essentially a vehicle for documentation, but aims at interpretation of its subject. Images in photography formed from this perspective are often metaphorical. Expressionists such as Morgan argue for a separation of the medium as a fine art from its functional and casual "snapshot" tradition. The second main axis running through Morgan's photographs is her experimental uses of manipulated or altered images created using montage, double exposure and time exposure techniques. Manipulating photographic images was important to Morgan because it freed her from any fears that a photograph is a mere record, or copy. An exploration of the relationship of the camera to other visual arts media, such as dance, and subjective transformation of the materials being photographed is the essential part of creating the unique images of Barbara Morgan. © 2000 Marquette University

Photography of Barbara Morgan
In Celebration of the Artist's 100th Anniversary

Barbara Brooks Morgan, born in 1900, is an American treasure who is well known in the visual art and dance worlds for her penetrating photographic studies of American Modern dancers such as Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, and José Limón.

In her series of dance photographs, Morgan captured the essence of modern dance and created timeless documents that are, at the same time, brilliant artistic images in two-dimension. Morgan was equally adept at portraiture as well as manipulating disparate elements into new multi-layered images, or photomontage. Her photomontage and light drawings push the art of photography beyond that of simply a tool that records a scene or event. Her abstract montage works demonstrate Morgan's grasp of the scientific properties of the medium and her ability to stretch the limits of photography to create exciting, kinetic imagery.

Though Morgan's drawings, prints, watercolors and paintings were widely exhibited in the 1920s and 1930s, she turned to photography in 1935 to allow more time in raising her children. As an artist, Morgan immediately distanced herself from "pure photography" and began experimenting. With her camera, she explored the photographic medium through a wide range of methods such as montage, double exposure and extended time exposure. The resulting black-and-white prints Morgan produced in the 1930s and 1940s rank among the classic experiments of Modern American photographic art.

Morgan's photographs fall into two important areas in the history of photography: Expressionist and manipulated image photography. Photographic meaning for expressionist photography extends beyond the photograph and becomes a symbol expressing personal vision and cultural values. Thus photography from an Expressionist's point of view is not essentially a vehicle for documentation, but aims at interpretation of its subject. Images in photography formed from this perspective are often metaphorical. Expressionists such as Morgan argue for a separation of the medium as a fine art from its functional and casual "snapshot" tradition.

The second main axis running through Morgan's photographs is her experimental uses of manipulated or altered images created using montage, double exposure and time exposure techniques. Manipulating photographic images was important to Morgan because it freed her from any fears that a photograph is a mere record, or copy. An exploration of the relationship of the camera to other visual arts media, such as dance, and subjective transformation of the materials being photographed is the essential part of creating the unique images of Barbara Morgan.