Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Morgan, Barbara Brooks, 1900-1992 and Morgan, Willard D. (Willard Detering) , 1900-1967
- Abstract:
- The Barbara and Willard Morgan photographs and papers relate to the personal lives and professional careers of artists and photographers Barbara Brooks Morgan (1900-1992) and Willard Detering Morgan (1900-1967). The collection includes correspondence; writings; publications; professional papers; exhibition materials; and individual and collaborative project materials. Visual materials comprise a significant portion of the collection: Barbara and Willard Morgan's photographic archives, as well as Barbara's drawings, paintings, and prints. The collection reflects the Morgans' close associations with photographers, dancers, architects, and other artists, including Martha Graham, Ansel Adams, and Richard Neutra. Family letters, documents, photographs, and ephemera, as well as business materials related to the family publishing business, are also included.
- Extent:
- 478.8 linear feet (616 boxes), 2 audiovisual carriers (1 unprocessed film reel, 1 unprocessed videocassette), 2 born-digital carriers (2 unprocessed optical discs), 25.8 linear feet (23 unprocessed boxes), and 53.4 Gigabytes (22,675 unprocessed files)
- Language:
- Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Barbara and Willard Morgan photographs and papers (Collection 2278). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
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Collection is comprised of materials related to the personal and professional lives of Barbara Brooks Morgan and Willard Detering Morgan. Collection includes correspondence, writings, exhibition materials, and professional papers, as well as photographic prints, slides, and negatives related to the photography careers of Barbara Morgan and Willard Morgan. Materials reflect the Morgans' personal and professional associations with photographers, dancers, architects, and other artists, including Ansel Adams, Martha Graham, and Richard Neutra.
Barbara Morgan materials include personal and professional correspondence; professional papers related to the management of her photography career; materials related to book projects, including Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs, and Summer's Children; articles, lectures, and teaching materials; personal journals; biographical articles; and subject files. Photographic material consists of negatives, slides, and prints covering the majority of her professional output, including original negatives and exhibition quality prints featuring modern dancers such as Martha Graham and José Limón; nature; children, and her experimental photomontage and photograms. Barbara Morgan's drawings, paintings, and prints are also in the collection.
Willard Morgan materials include correspondence and papers related to his positions with E. Leitz Inc., MoMA, and Life magazine, as well as his writing and editing career; personal journals; biographical materials; working files; and correspondence and documents related to his longtime interest in printing and typography. Photographic material includes negatives, slides, and prints primarily related to the architecture of Southern California, including the work of Richard Neutra.
There is also material related to the early collaborative work of Barbara and Willard, including journals and images of their trips through the American Southwest in the late 1920s, documentation of the Barnes Foundation collections, and photographs of their early days in New York City. Due to the collaborative nature of this work, authorship of the photographic material is sometimes ambiguous. Also in the collection is Morgan family materials, such as correspondence (including early courtship letters between Barbara and Willard), genealogy documents, and photographs. Additionally, the collection contains correspondence, book proofs, and other materials related to the family publishing business.
- Biographical / historical:
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Barbara Brooks Morgan was born in 1900 in Buffalo, Kansas, and Willard Detering Morgan was born in 1900 in Snohomish, Washington. Their families later relocated to Southern California, and they met while students at Pomona High School. Willard attended Pomona College, and later earned a living writing articles and illustrating them with his own photographs. Barbara attended UCLA from 1919 to 1923 and joined the art faculty there in 1925, where she taught Design, Landscape and Woodcut. Willard continued to photograph around the Los Angeles area, inspired by the architectural work of his friend Richard Neutra, as well as quintessentially local structures such as drive-in markets. The Morgans married in 1925, and spent their summers traveling the Southwest with painting and photography equipment, experiences that were deeply affecting for both. On these trips the Morgans experimented with 35mm Leica cameras, novel at the time for their small size.
In 1930, when Willard Morgan received a job offer from E. Leitz, Inc., the manufacturer of Leica cameras, the couple moved to New York City. Barbara put painting aside at that time to focus primarily on photography, a decision that coincided with the birth of the couple's two children, Douglas in 1932 and Lloyd in 1935. While Willard worked for Leica and moved on to other photography-related jobs with the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Life magazine, and Look magazine, Barbara achieved recognition photographing modern dancers and experimenting with photomontage. While a student at UCLA, she was guided by Arthur Wesley Dow's principles of art synthesis, and the Chinese Six Canons of Painting, whose principles of "rhythmic vitality" or the essence of life force directed her artistic expression. Working as a photographer allowed her to partner light energy with the physical and spiritual energies in dance. Her photographs from the 1938 Bennington College Festival of Modern Dance, and a book project, Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs, cemented her reputation as a significant contemporary photographer. She was invited to exhibit and teach at Black Mountain College in 1943, mounted a solo exhibition at MoMA in 1945, and, with a consortium of other photographers, founded Aperture magazine in 1952. Over the years her interests also included children's growth, which resulted in photography projects with camps, schools, and colleges, and culminated in her book Summer's Children.
Meanwhile, Willard had started a publishing business which focused primarily on photography books and manuals. The company published a variety of how-to books and technical manuals, including The Leica Manual and early editions of Ansel Adams' Zone System book series. Willard also edited The Complete Photographer, the ten-volume Encyclopedia of Photography published by the National Educational Alliance, and also maintained a typography collection and working print shop in the basement of the family's Scarsdale home. Willard Morgan died in 1967.
Barbara Morgan continued to make photographs, as well as lecture, write, and teach on photography in the decades following Willard's death. In the 1970s, she was invited to participate in a number of workshops, including with Ansel Adams in Yosemite, and also mounted a second solo show at MoMA. Her photography continues to be exhibited widely, and her life and work is the subject of numerous articles and interviews. Barbara Morgan died in 1992.
- Acquisition information:
- Purchase/Gift from the Morgan family, 2014. Additional gifts from the Morgan family, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.
- Custodial history:
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Following the passing of Willard Morgan, then Barbara Morgan, multiple Morgan family members maintained the materials and managed the archives for many years.
- Processing information:
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Processed in phases by: Kelly Kress, Julia Hause, and Jessica Tai, 2016-2018; Lauren McDaniel and Jessica Tai, 2017-2018; Lauren McDaniel and Claire Gordon, 2019. Extensive preservation and conservation treatment performed throughout by the UCLA Library Preservation Studios, with additional help from the following Library Special Collections student assistants: Alex Adame, Cristina Aida Delgado, Kenia Matia Gomez, Jessica Reid, Cecile Riviere-Cazaux, Brooke Urick, and Alice Jingyi Zhang. Additional rehousing by Octavio Olvera. Additional description by Kelly Besser and Tess Livesley-O'Neill in 2020. Additional description by Genie Guerard in 2023-2025. Final processing by Genie Guerard and Kelly Besser with assistance from Paola Salazar, Preksha Ambrish, Sky Bassiry, and Liz Gost, 2023.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Problematic Content and Description in UCLA's library collections and archives.
- Arrangement:
-
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
- Series 1: Barbara Morgan exhibition materials
- Series 2: Barbara Morgan correspondence
- Series 3: Barbara Morgan professional materials
- Series 4: Barbara Morgan photographic projects
- Series 5: Barbara Morgan writings
- Series 6: Barbara Morgan UCLA student and teaching career
- Series 7: Barbara Morgan professional activities
- Series 8: Barbara Morgan personal and biographical materials
- Series 9: Barbara Morgan photographic material
- Series 10: Barbara Morgan drawings, paintings, and prints
- Series 11: Barbara Morgan subject files
- Series 12: Willard Morgan photography career
- Series 13: Willard Morgan writings and published materials
- Series 14: Willard Morgan architectural photography and projects
- Series 15: Willard Morgan typography files
- Series 16: Willard Morgan personal and biographical materials
- Series 17: Willard Morgan working files
- Series 18: Collaborative work
- Series 19: Family materials
- Series 20: Publishing company materials
- Series 21: Artifacts and audiovisual materials
- Physical / technical requirements:
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CONTAINS DIGITAL, AUDIO, AND AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed digital, audio, and audiovisual materials. For information about the access status of the material that you are looking for, refer to the Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital, audio, and audiovisual materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Physical location:
- Portions of the collection stored off-site. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Access and use
- Restrictions:
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Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
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Copyright to portions of this collection has been assigned to the UCLA Library Special Collections. The library can grant permission to publish for materials to which it holds the copyright. All requests for permission to publish must be submitted in writing to Library Special Collections. Credit shall be given as follows: The Regents of the University of California on behalf of the UCLA Library Special Collections.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Barbara and Willard Morgan photographs and papers (Collection 2278). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
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A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988