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Finding Aid for the Barbara Morgan Wight Gallery Collection, 1938-1967
1872
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Title: Barbara Morgan Wight Gallery Collection
Date (inclusive): 1938-1967
Collection number: 1872
Creator:
Sukey Garcetti in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), with assistance from Kelley Wolfe Bachli, 2010
Extent:
8 flat boxes.
Abstract: The collection includes 143 mounted photographs, 137 of which were taken by Barbara Morgan and 6 by her husband, Willard D.
Morgan. The photographs include images of dancers, nature, Camp Treetops, a Southwest series, New York cityscapes, and a junkyard
series.
Language: Finding aid is written in
English.
Language of the Material:
Materials are in English.
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library Special Collections.
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections
for paging information.
Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library
Special Collections for paging information.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the
creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright
owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Processed by Sukey Garcetti in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT), with assistance from Kelley Wolfe Bachli,
2010.
[Identification of item], Barbara Morgan Wight Gallery Collection (Collection 1872). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles
E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Barbara Morgan was a twentieth century photographer best known for her photographs of dancers, photomontages, and light drawings.
The University of California at Los Angeles Wight Gallery acquired this collection of Morgan photographs before becoming part
of the Hammer Museum.
The Wight Art Gallery at University of California at Los Angeles originally opened in 1964 under the name UCLA Art Galleries
and exhibited works on paper, paintings and sculpture. In 1974, the gallery is renamed to the Frederick S. Wight Art Galleries
in honor of the former dean of the University of California at Los Angeles Art Department dean. Once the University of California
at Los Angeles assumed control of the Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center in 1994, the operations of the Wight
Gallery were moved there and the gallery was dissolved.
Barbara Brooks Morgan was born in Buffalo, Kansas on July 8, 1900, but grew up in Los Angeles, CA. She attended UCLA from
1919 to 1923 where she trained as a painter and later joined the art faculty (1925-30). Her shift away from painting and interest
in the medium of photography grew out of meeting Edward Weston.
She married Willard D. Morgan and then relocated to New York in 1930. After the birth of her two sons, Douglas (1932) and
Lloyd (1935), she began to concentrate on her photography career. An accomplished designer, author, artist, and photographer,
she is best known for her photographs of American modern dancers, among them, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Pearl Primus,
Jose Limon, and Charles Weidman. She contributed articles and reviews to various publications and published several books
including,
Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs (1941),
Summer's Children: A Photographic Cycle of Life at Camp [Camp Treetops] (1951), and
A Collection of Material about Barbara Morgan (1972), as well as having a photo in
Family of Man (1955). She died August 18, 1992 in Scarsdale, NY.
The collection includes 143 mounted photos, 137 of which were taken by Barbara Morgan and 6 by her husband, Willard D. Morgan.
These photos include photos of dancers, nature, various portraits, Camp Treetops (a children's camp featured in her book
Summer's Children), a Southwest series, New York cityscapes, and a junkyard series. Examples of her experimental photomontages and photograms
are also included, as are photos taken with the first Leica Model A camera by her and her husband.
Arranged in the following series:
- Dance
- Portraits
- Nature
- Experimental photographs
- Auto junkyard series
- Camp Treetops
- Southwest series
- Packing labels
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
Morgan, Barbara Brooks,--1900-
Women photographers.
Women artists.