Barbara Morgan

American, (1900–1992)

Born in Buffalo, Kansas in 1900, Barbara Morgan grew up on a peach ranch in southern California,
where her family moved shortly after her birth. Morgan studied art at the University of California, Los
Angeles from 1919–1923 and took on a teaching position at the University in 1925. During her summers off from teaching, Morgan and her husband, writer and photographer Willard Morgan, traveled through the desert, where they would paint and photograph the landscapes. In 1930, Morgan left her job at UCLA to move to New York City. Though she dabbled in photography with her husband, Morgan continued to focus on painting and printmaking, as she didn’t see photography as an artistic medium. However, after having two children, Morgan began to experiment more with photography because she felt it was a more efficient form of artmaking.