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Through the Eyes of Lucy Burrows Morley: An Exhibition of Photography

When

Tuesday May 3, 2016: 9:00am to Wednesday June 15, 2016: 9:00pm

Where

Malletts Creek Branch: Exhibits

Description

Featuring more than 50 photographs by the Saginaw-born photographer Lucy Burrows Morley, the exhibit was organized and curated by Chris Thomson in conjunction with the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History. The images showcase Morley’s eye for composition and her ability to capture the moment. While Morley was considered an amateur, her images rivaled those of professional photographers during the early 20th century. With a Brownie camera she captured daily life as she saw it happening in the early 1900s. Technically an amateur, Morley had an impressive sense of composition and often chose to photograph her subjects from behind, as if both to leave them undisturbed and to glimpse the world as it appeared through their eyes.

The exhibit reflects Morley’s particular strengths, featuring photographs of her subjects from behind which allowed viewers to see the world as it appeared through their eyes. Her subjects included her family, her hometown of Saginaw, northern Michigan and other landscapes scenes from across the United States and Europe.

Lucy Burrows Morley (1871-1948) was a self-taught photographer who got her start in 1903, photographing her children at home in Saginaw, Michigan. The hobby was only magnified in 1908 when she traveled with her camera across Canada to Banff and Vancouver, continuing south to California and Arizona where she photographed the Redwood Forest and the Grand Canyon, respectively. She set off again in 1910, this time crossing the Atlantic by steamship, aiming her lens at points across Europe, including England, Germany, Switzerland and France, creating images at times reminiscent of the work of Jacques Henri Lartigue, who captured similar upper-class settings around that same time.

“Through the Eyes of Lucy Burrows Morley: An Exhibition of Photography” was originally organized for the Castle Museum of Saginaw County History where it was shown during the summer of 2013. It has since been shown at Interlochen Center for the Arts.

The exhibit was made possible with a generous contribution from the Morley Foundation and the Mark T. Morley Memorial Fund.