Morgan Sanders (1934 – April 27, 2021), also known as Martha Sanders, was an American painter, photographer, poet, and author of the children's book Alexander and the Magic Mouse.
Morgan Sanders | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1934 |
| Died | April 27, 2021 (aged 86–87) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Reed College |
| Known for | Children's literature, painting, photography |
| Notable work | Alexander and the Magic Mouse (1969) |
Children's book and comic strips edit
Sanders earned a B.A. in Literature at Reed College in 1955.[1] She wrote Alexander and the Magic Mouse (1969).[2] It is a children’s book about an Alligator from China who lives with an Old Lady, a Brindle London Squatting Cat, a Magical Mouse, and a Yak.[3] Although Sanders was a working artist, the French illustrator Philippe Fix was responsible for the pictures. According to one reviewer in 1970, it "make(s) the book the success it is."[3] The same reviewer likened the colors of Fix's illustrations to "yesteryear's tintypes," which "set the Victorian scene and show Alexander to best advantage."[3] Sanders created her own illustrations for Branwell Snit, a comic strip that appeared between 1975 and 1977 in Wisdoms Child, a pennysaver in New York City.[2] The comic strip similarly featured a cast of talking animal characters: Branwell F. Snit, a cogitating prodigy feline named after Branwell Brontë and based on Sanders's actual cat of the same name; Monroe, an undifferentiated bird; and Kenneth, a shaggy dog.[2] In 2016, Sanders published her entire Branwell Snit comic strip series in The Branwell Snitbook: The Complete Branwell Snit Cat Comix.[2][4]
Poetry edit
Throughout her adult life, Sanders wrote poetry, which eventually "approached the Wordsworthian ideal of natural and yet heightened language."[5] In 1975, one of her poems was included in an anthology of works by contemporary female poets.[6] Sanders published a collection of her poems and a selection of her drawings in Looking for Lola: Poems & Drawings by Morgan Sanders, which was released in 2018.[5] Most of the poems were written while she was living in New York City in the 1960s.[4]
Paintings and wall constructions edit
In 1973, Morgan Sanders was a founding member of SOHO20, the second all-women cooperative art gallery in New York City.[7][8][9][10] For her initial exhibition at SOHO20 in early 1974, she showed three-dimensional wall constructions that combined painting and found objects.[11] In his review, the art critic Peter Frank described the "progressions of dissimilar elements" as "episodic" and praised their suggestion of "a stream-of-consciousness narrative, with rapid, exhilarating changes of venue."[12] At SOHO20 in 1975, Sanders exhibited four sets of photographs and three large paintings that depicted the aging interiors of turn-of-the-twentieth-century architecture on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, including Tiemann Place.[13][14] The paintings, which showed the "marble of a lobby, metal work of a bannister, floor tiles, and masonry details," were segmented in a collage-like manner.[14] A large nocturnal view of her apartment was similarly "disjointed," as if "the canvas was painted in sections," according to a reviewer in the New York Times.[15]
Photography edit
Sanders increasingly turned to photography in the late 1970s and began to create photographic series, such as Harlem Walls and Trucks.[16] She showed Harlem Walls at the New York Public Library.[17] Trucks was exhibited at The Camera Club of New York in 1980,[16] and at the Viking Union Gallery in Bellingham, Washington shortly after Sanders moved there in 1982.[17] The next year, she showed a photographic series called Flowers and Stones at Fairhaven College.[18] Shot with a telephoto lens, the works were meant to be seen from a distance of 20 to 25 feet, which made the flowers "become the dipping and sweeping figures of dancers in flowing gauze gowns," in the words of one reviewer.[18] By the end of the 1980s, she was photographing the countryside in Whatcom County, Washington.[19]
References edit
- ^ "Reediana Briefs". Reed Magazine. March 2017. Retrieved 24 February 2018.
- ^ a b c d Sanders, Morgan (2016). The Branwell Snitbook: The Complete Branwell Snit Cat Comix. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 9781534773943. under the nom de plume Martha Sanders.
- ^ a b c O'Connell, Margaret F. (8 February 1970). "For Young Readers". New York Times.
- ^ a b Fields, Linda (10 April 2019). "Morgan Sanders, Creator of Famous Comic Strip, Publishes First Poetry Collection". Pike County Courier. Retrieved 23 August 2022.
- ^ a b Sanders, Morgan (2018). Looking for Lola: Poems and Drawings by Morgan Sanders. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1719229401.
- ^ Iverson, Lucille; Ruby, Kathryn, eds. (1975). We Become New: Poems by Contemporary American Women. New York: Bantam Books. p. 170.
- ^ Lubell, Ellen (Summer 1977). "SoHo 20". Womanart. 1 (1): 16.
- ^ Broude, Norma; Garrard, Mary D., eds. (1994). The Power of Feminist Art: The American Movement of the 1970s, History and Impact. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
- ^ Bergantini Grillo, Jean (Summer 1976). "Soho 20: A Diverse Women's Gallery". The Feminist Art Journal. 5 (2): 36–37.
- ^ "SOHO20 Gallery: Organization History". SOHO20 Gallery. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
- ^ "Art". New York Magazine: 26. 18 February 1974. Retrieved 24 February 2018.
- ^ Frank, Peter (14 February 1974). "On Art". SoHo Weekly News.
- ^ "Art". New York Magazine: 24. 3 March 1975. Retrieved 24 February 2018.
- ^ a b Lubell, Ellen (May 1975). "Arts Reviews: Morgan Sanders". Arts Magazine. 49 (9): 13–14.
- ^ Raynor, Vivien (30 December 1977). "Art: Representation Is Alive in SoHo". New York Times.
- ^ a b "Piston-Packin' Mama". New York Magazine: 67. 18 February 1980.
- ^ a b "Love Those Big Mother Trucks". Bellingham Herald. 17 September 1982.
- ^ a b Harris, John (7 October 1983). "Photographer Takes Long Look at Flowers and Rocks". Bellingham Herald.
- ^ "Behind the Shutter: Morgan Sanders". Taste: Bellingham's Magazine for Fine Living. 2 (2): 24–25. August 1989.