Barbara Morgan (American, 1900 – 1992)
Martha Graham, Letter to the World, 1940
Gelatin silver print
10 X 13 in.
Gift of Martin Blumenthal
The photograph Martha Graham, Letter to the World is art within art: it was taken by photographer Barbara Morgan, depicting a dance choreographed by Martha Graham, based on poetry by Emily Dickinson.
American photographer Barbara Morgan was commissioned by the Martha Graham Dance Company to capture dancers in motion, including Martha Graham herself, a revolutionary American modern dancer and choreographer. For Graham, dance was very emotional, almost spiritual, and it encompassed all of who she was, saying “I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It’s permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless, it is inevitable.” [1] This fear, intensity, and passion is striking in Graham’s piece Letter to the World: a dance of isolation and communication and loneliness, a piece that builds off of the emotion of “This Is My Letter to the World”, a poem by Emily Dickinson.
This is my letter to the world,
[2]
That never wrote to me,–
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!
In the photograph, Graham’s torso is parallel with the floor, her dress rhythmically billowing up behind her from the force of her kick, her leg extending outward in an arabesque or attitude. Her upper body is very visible and detailed, but her legs disappear under the dress; she’s floating, grounded with just one foot. Ethereal grief is expressed through the tension in her neck and in her closed eyes, her head leaning into her hand. The solid black background juxtaposes the harsh, ghostly white of her figure. And though it’s a still photo, a frozen moment, Morgan captured energy and life and emotion.
Morgan’s photograph “Letter to the World” is from her book Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs. She is best known for her dynamic dance photography; she held two shows at Museum of Modern Art, New York, and lectured nationally for nearly fifty years. She received the Women’s Caucus for Art Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986, an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts degree From Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1978, and the Lifetime Achievement Award of American Society of Magazine Photographers. The Barbara Morgan estate is represented by the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York, New York.
Members of the Davidson community can view this work on display in the Harry L. Vance Athletic Center.
[1] The Dancer Revealed, American Masters: Season 8, Episode 2, PBS, May 13, 1994
[2] Dickinson, Emily. “This Is My Letter to the World.” 1862.
Isabel Smith, ’24