Willard D Morgan

Willard "Herc" Detering Morgan (born May 30, 1900 in Snohomish, Washington- September 18, 1967 in Bronxville, New York) was a photographer, writer, editor, and educator and the husband of photographer Barbara Morgan, known for her documentation of Martha Graham's dances.

Morgan's career spanned some of the most influential developments in the history of American photography. He was instrumental in introducing the first 35mm camera in the US, was an early director of photography at MOMA, and was the first to exhibit the Farm Security Administration photographers. He was also a writer and editor of technical publications on photography (from the Leica Manual, to Ansel Adams’ Basic Photo Series, Encyclopedia of Photography, to Encyclopædia Britannica), and was a photo editor at LIFE and later a photo editor at Look.

Willard Morgan was born in Snohomish, Washington on May 30, 1900 to Morgan and Marie Detering. Known to his friends as Herc, short for Hercules, Morgan was a very large man who stood 6’7” with a corresponding athletic build.

As a teenager in Pomona, California, Morgan operated a small press out of his home—writing articles, photographing, and editing small journals for youth groups.

After graduating from Pomona College in 1923 with a degree in English, Morgan earned his living by writing freelance magazine articles and illustrating them with his photographs. He married Barbara Brooks Johnson, a painter on the art faculty of UCLA in 1925. While she helped him with composition, he taught her photography. She would eventually use these lessons to produce photographs of Martha Graham.

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