Getty Museum
Valerie Bettis - Desperate Heart
Creator
Barbara MorganAmerican Photographer · 1900–1992
All works by this person →>We didn't have very much money, so [my husband] set up our darkroom in the bathroom. Every time I went to the bathroom, I learned about photography, because there would be [his] negatives hanging and dangling, and prints washing in trays...I never studied photography, I absorbed it. Barbara Morgan grew up in California and studied painting at the University of California at Los Angeles. Upon grad
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1943–1945
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Culture
- American
- Department
- Photographs
- Institution
- Getty Museum
After training in modern dance under German teachers, the American dancer Valerie Bettis began performing professionally at the age of seventeen and made her debut as a choreographer at Carnegie Hall at twenty-one. She gained a reputation for her intensity and for combining dance and literature. John Malcolm Brinnin's poem "Desperate Heart," an exploration of the frantic "backwards and forwards" longing for a past love, was the basis for this piece. Incorporating two negatives in one print, the photographer recorded both poetry and dance.
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