Norma Morgan
*This date in 1928 is celebrated as the birth date of Norma Morgan, a Black printmaker, artist, and painter.
Norma Gloria Morgan was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Her mother raised her after her father's early death, and she worked as a domestic worker, seamstress, and designer. Morgan showed interest in art from childhood, painting a classroom mural at thirteen and receiving recognition for her painting, Reflections, completed when she was seventeen. She studied at the Art Students League of New York for two years, privately with Hans Hofmann in her early 20s and later with Stanley Hayter. It was Hayter who taught her engraving.
Morgan received a fellowship to study in England in her twenties and spent much of her time exploring the Moors. This time-inspired work centered on natural imagery, especially skies and clouds. She went back to Great Britain in 1961 and stayed there until 1966. Her work was selected to represent the United States in the First World Festival of Negro Arts, held in Dakar, Senegal, in April 1966. The other American artists in this exhibition included Barbara Chase-Riboud (then known as Barbara Chase), Emilio Cruz, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, and Charles White.
Among the awards she won for her work are the John Hay Whitney Fellowship, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, three gold medals from the American Artists Professional League, and the gold medal from Audubon Artists. Morgan spent her active years living in New York City, where she worked primarily on engravings in her apartment, and in Woodstock, New York, where she had space for a large painting. She loved the outdoors and activities such as cross-country skiing and lake swimming. She also played mandolin, meeting with other musicians to play in Washington Square Park. In interviews, Morgan explained that her motivations for her artwork go "beyond" the black experience and feminist identity.
Her works span Realism, Surrealism, and fantasy and feature figurative works of family members, landscapes, and vistas. Her work is found in major collections worldwide, and she has been highly recognized for her etchings and engravings, many of which were inspired by time spent in Great Britain. Norma Morgan died in 2017.
