Barbara Morgan Signed Original Silver Gelatin Photograph “Louise Kloepper Statement of Dissent 1938” With Provenance Mounted on Board

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Barbara Morgan Signed Original Silver Gelatin Photograph “Louise Kloepper Statement of Dissent 1938” is signed and dated by Morgan in … Read more Barbara Morgan Signed Original Silver Gelatin Photograph “Louise Kloepper Statement of Dissent 1938” is signed and dated by Morgan in pencil on the mount and on verso, titled in pencil in Morgan's hand on the mount and on verso, with copyright stamp on verso and additional notation in Morgan's hand: "Archivally printed 1981, B.B.M”. The measurements of the photograph are 10 1/8” x 10 3/4” on the 16” x 18” original thick paper mount.
This vintage gelatin silver photograph, titled “Louise Kloepper Statement of Dissent 1938” was taken by renowned modern dance photographer Barbara Morgan in 1938, copyright in 1980, and Archivally printed by her in 1981. I believe this particular photograph to be rare as I have not seen another one elsewhere.

The ballet “Statement of Dissent” was choreographed and famously performed by modern dancer and educator Louise Kloepper as a solo composition in 1938. She debuted the piece at the Bennington Festival in Vermont, and it was later featured in the 1939 motion picture Young America Dances. In a highlight of the film, Kloepper performs her solo composition, Statement of Dissent. She strides powerfully across the stage, commanding attention via her large, declamatory upper body gestures. Louise Kloepper, a notable modern dancer was a prominent member of the Hanya Holm company.

Barbara Morgan (American 1900-1992): Born in Buffalo, Kansas, Barbara Morgan moved with her family to California shortly after her birth. She studied at the University of California at Los Angeles, then taught high school and college art courses after her graduation in 1923. In 1925 helped Edward Weston install an exhibition of his work at the UCLA Gallery. With her husband, the photographer Willard Morgan, she moved to New York City in 1930, and concentrated on painting until 1935, when the birth of a child brought her to photography, a medium that could be practiced quickly and efficiently. Through it, Morgan was able to combine a number of her interests: dance, the iconographic power of gesture, and the simultaneity of visual stimuli. Her first book was Martha Graham: Sixteen Dances in Photographs. A decade later came Summer's Children: A Photographic Cycle of Life at Camp (1951).
While Morgan is best known for the vibrancy of her dance photographs, equally characteristic of her diverse work is her ability to capture ephemeral gesture. In the mid-1930s, her choice of abstract photographic styles set her apart from the preponderance of American documentary photographers. Along with Ansel Adams, Beaumont Newhall, Dorothea Lange, and five others, Morgan will be remembered as a co-founder of Aperture magazine in 1951, one of the few publications at the time to nurture a dialogue among photographers and treat photography as a fine art.

Louise Kloepper (January 10, 1910-December 15, 1996) professor emerita and former chairperson of dance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was born in Washington D.C., and died at the age of eighty-six in Madison, Wisconsin. She was the cherished daughter of Henry August and Louise Nigel Kloepper, the beloved sister of Karl and Millie, and the revered aunt of Scott Davis.
Louise, as a young child, moved to Washington with her parents. She attended high school in Tacoma, Washington, studied dance, and performed in recitals together with her sister Millie.
As a teenager Louise danced "Bamboula" in a contest at the Pantages Theater in Tacoma. The dance was selected to be part of a vaudeville show. She also performed an Arabic dance at a movie theater, after the newsreel and before the movie "The Thieves of Baghdad." Louise studied ballet with Mary Ann Wells in Seattle as a teenager and received much praise and encouragement for her dance talent from her teacher, the local press, family and friends.
Upon graduation from high school in 1929, Louise traveled to Berlin, Germany where she entered the Mary Wigman School of the Dance. Louise also enrolled in the University of Berlin, studying German, contemporary German art, and literature. During her second year in Germany, she studied in Dresden with Mary Wigman, Hanya Holm, and staff. Her classes included dance theory, percussion, dance technique, and group dance. In 1931, Louise received a diploma from the Wigman School. She was the first American pupil to complete the course.
Louise returned to the United States in 1931 and opened her own dance school in Tacoma, Washington. Within a year, she closed her school in order to accept an invitation to teach at the Mary Wigman School in New York, directed by Hanya Holm. Louise worked in New York with Holm, her mentor, teacher and colleague, from 1931 until 1942, studying, teaching, and performing on a daily basis. She taught at the Holm studio, Columbia Teacher's College and New York University. She also participated in three transcontinental tours with Hanya Holm and Company, and was best known for her roles in Trend, Metropolitan Daily, and Golden Fleece. Louise was known as an outstanding teacher of the Holm technique. Many of her students went on to become prominent dancers, teachers and movement therapists. Louise taught at several summer programs around the country, including Bennington, Vermont where she appeared in 1937 in Hanya Holm's groundbreaking Trend. During that same year, she performed with the Holm Company in Madison, Wisconsin, where she received rave reviews from local critics. Louise remembered participating in a lecture-demonstration in the fundamentals room of Lathrop Hall. Little did she know that she would in the future study and teach in the building loved by dancers and physical educators who trained there since its opening in
1910. During this period, she was also an invited teacher at the Gloucester Theatre School in Massachusetts, the Perry Mansfield Camp in Colorado, and the University of California, Los Angeles.
For the summer of 1938, Louise received a fellowship from Bennington College, where she created Earth Sage a group dance and two solos Romantic Theme and a Statement of Dissent. The latter work appeared on the video Hanya: Portrait of a Pioneer (Chico: California State University 1985).

Provenance: I purchased this photograph from the personal collection of Dr. Curtis L. Carter. Dr. Curtis Carter co-curated multiple exhibitions of Barbara Morgan’s photography throughout the years and was a close personal friend of hers.

Curtis L. Carter is a professor of Philosophy at Marquette University, focusing on aesthetics. He received a PhD from the University of Boston. His greatest accomplishment at Marquette was the creation of the Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art. Carter was the founding director from 1984-2007. Haggerty Museum attempts to build a greater appreciation for the arts in the Milwaukee and Marquette Community. He also teaches several classes on the philosophy of art.
Carter also serves as an associate professor at Marquette University's Les Aspin Center in Washington DC. At the Aspin Center, Carter teaches a class titled "Arts in a Democratic Society", through which he attempts to integrate the importance of the arts in a Democratic society. The class consists of tours of art museums, historical landmarks and buildings in the DC area, visits to performances at the Kennedy Center. Carter currently serves as vice president of the International Association for Aesthetics. Carter has recently expanded his teaching to China. See less