Send an ecard of this image

Dance Icon

"The body says what words cannot."—Martha Graham

Martha Graham, modern dancer and prolific choreographer, was born on this day in 1894 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the 1930s, Graham collaborated with photographer Barbara Morgan on a book, Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs, which marked a high point for both careers. Morgan's photographs captured the intensity and essence of Graham's art, and the two women were lifelong friends.

Morgan's photograph depicts Graham performing Letter to the World. The inner life of Emily Dickinson is the subject of Letter to the World, which premiered in 1940 and was continually revised for the next two years. In the dance Graham portrays the multiple aspects of Dickinson's psyche. … Yearning for happiness, memories of events and feelings, and the loss of her lover force Dickinson to face her destiny as a poet, to realize that her happiness is to be found in her work alone.

Source: Stephen Polcari. "Martha Graham and Abstract Expressionism," Smithsonian Studies in American Art 4, no. 1 (winter 1990): 4–5.

Pictured: Barbara Morgan, 1900–1992, Martha Graham-Letter to the World-(Swirl), 1940, printed about 1980, gelatin silver print on paper, 15 7/16 x 19 7/16 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Virginia Zabriskie.