Newberry Library - Smith, Hermon Dunlap, Helen Balfour Morrison photograph collection, approximately 1935-approximately 1957

Smith, Hermon Dunlap, Helen Balfour Morrison photograph collection, approximately 1935-approximately 1957

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Title Smith, Hermon Dunlap, Helen Balfour Morrison photograph collection, approximately 1935-approximately 1957

Date approximately 1935-approximately 1957

Language English

Subjects Portraits, Portraits, American, Morrison, Helen Balfour

Description A preliminary inventory of photographs taken by Helen Balfour Morrison intended for a “Great Americans” series of portraits. The collection includes over 900 prints, with over 550 unique images. Individuals represent a wide range of professions including visual and performing artists, educators and academics, architects, journalist and literary writers, scientists, social activists, and business and government leaders.

Biographical/Historical Note Helen Balfour was born in Evanston, Illinois on August 1, 1900 or 1901 to Fannie Lindley and Alexander Balfour. In her later teenage years, Helen took a job in a photography studio to help support the family after the death of her mother. At this studio she learned to use the portrait camera and helped expand the studio’s business with creative ideas of her own. In the 1920s, Helen and her brother Malcolm (“Mac”) started their own commercial photography business in Evanston. She married Robert Bruce Morrison (March 5, 1902 – June 19, 1966), a publishing executive, in 1925 or 1926.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Morrison undertook several photography projects. She is known for her “Great Americans” or “Notable Americans” series, photographing some 200 people, among them Robert Frost, Helen Hayes, Nelson Algren, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein, Mies van der Rohe, Amelia Earhart, and Jane Addams. During the same period, Morrison created a series of documentary and artistic photographs of African American communities in Kentucky.

In 1943 she became lighting director and artistic collaborator with modern dancer Sybil Shearer and by the mid-1950s was photographing Shearer exclusively. Her collaboration with Shearer produced a large collection of extraordinary dance photographs and films, as well as an intense and sensitive documentation of Shearer’s life. Their artistic and personal collaborations continued until Helen’s death on November 6, 1984.

Format Photographs

Archival Collection Title Helen Balfour Morrison photograph collection

Link to Catalog View finding aid

Call Number Midwest MS Morrison PC Box 11 Folder 181

BibID 9911414868805867

Rights Status Copyright Not Evaluated

Contributing Institution Newberry Library

Newberry Open Access Policy The Newberry makes its collections available for any lawful purpose, commercial or non-commercial, without licensing or permission fees to the library, subject to these terms and conditions.

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IIIF Resource Type Canvas

Size 4195px × 5871px 141.00 MB

File Created 02/09/2024

Filename 9911414868805867_ord_midwest_ms_morrison_pl_box_00011_fl_00181_dunlap.tif

Unique Identifier NL123CMX

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