{{short description|American printmaker and painter (born 1928)}} {{Infobox artist | name = Norma Morgan | image = | alt = Half-length portrait of Norma Morgan with her arms folded, leaning on a table in front of her. | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1928 | birth_place = New Haven, Connecticut | death_date = 2017 | death_place = | alma_mater = | movement = | awards = | patrons = | imagesize = | field = Painting and printmaking | training = Hans Hofmann School, Art Students League | works = | influenced by = | influenced = }} '''Norma Morgan''' (1928–2017) was an American printmaker and painter. 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.
== Early life and education == Norma Gloria Morgan was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1929. She is African-American. Her mother raised her, after the early death of her father, and worked as a domestic worker, a seamstress, and designer. Morgan showed interest in art from childhood, painting a classroom wall mural at the age of thirteen and receiving recognition for her painting, ''Reflections'', completed when she was seventeen. Following high school, she studied at the Whitney School of Art in New Haven, Connecticut two years at the Art Students League of New York, privately with Hans Hofmann in her early 20s, and later with Stanley Hayter. It was Hayter who taught her engraving.<ref name="matterbalance">{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Sandra Lewis |title=Norma Morgan: A Matter of Balance |journal=Black American Literature Forum |date=Spring 1985 |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=34–35 |doi=10.2307/2904473 |jstor=2904473 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Cederholm |first=Theresa Dickason |url=https://archive.org/details/afroamericanarti00cede_0 |title=Afro-American Artists, A Bio-bibliographical Directory |publisher=Trustees of the Boston Public Library |year=1973 |pages=204–205 |isbn=9780890730072 |language=English}}</ref>
== Career and life == Morgan received a fellowship to study in England in her twenties and spent much of her time exploring the Moors. This time inspired work that centered on natural imagery, especially skies and clouds. She went back to Great Britain in 1961 and stayed there until 1966.<ref name="matterbalance" /> 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 included in this exhibition included Barbara Chase-Riboud (at that time known as Barbara Chase), Emilio Cruz, Sam Gilliam, Richard Hunt, Jacob Lawrence, and Charles White.<ref name="dakar">{{cite journal |last1=Cooke |first1=Paul |title=An Account of the First World Festival of Negro Arts (Premier Festival Mondial Des Arts Negres) In Dakar, Senegal—April 1-24, 1966 |journal=Negro History Bulletin |date=1966 |volume=29 |issue=8 |pages=171–189 |jstor=44176219 }}</ref>
She has won a distinguished list of awards for her work, including but not limited to the John Hay Whitney Fellowship; first prize at the Philadelphia Museum in 1955; Gold Medal, Graphics Award, National Academy of Arts & Letters; the Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant; three gold medals from the American Artists Professional League, and the gold medal from Audubon Artists.<ref>{{cite news |title=Moody art at Lake State |publisher=Evening News |date=1985-09-25}}</ref> Her work is in the collection of the Academy Art Museum in Easton, Maryland.
Morgan spent her active years living in both New York City, where she worked primarily on engravings in her apartment, and Woodstock, New York, where she had space for large painting. She has a love of 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.<ref name="matterbalance" />[https://www.learningwoodstockartcolony.com/post/norma-morgan-in-the-lands-of-the-moors-and-catskills]
In interviews, Morgan has explained that her motivations for her artwork go "beyond" the black experience and feminist identity. Her works span Realism and Surrealism and fantasy, and feature figurative works of family members, landscape and vistas.<ref name="henkes">{{cite book |last1=Henkes |first1=Robert |title=The Art of Black American Women: works of twenty-four artists of the twentieth century |date=1993 |publisher=McFarland & Company, Inc |location=Jefferson, North Carolina and London |isbn=978-0899508184 |pages=64–74}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == *[https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.5026.html/ Norma Morgan at the National Gallery of Art] *[https://www.moma.org/artists/4091/ Norma Morgan at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC] {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, Norma}} Category:1928 births Category:American women printmakers Category:Artists from New Haven, Connecticut Category:Art Students League of New York alumni Category:20th-century American women artists Category:20th-century American printmakers Category:African-American printmakers Category:20th-century African-American artists Category:21st-century African-American people Category:21st-century African-American women Category:20th-century African-American women artists Category:2017 deaths