Morrison-Shearer Foundation
401 Lee Road
Northbrook, IL 60062
Phone (847) 291-9161
Fax (847) 291-1867
info@morrisonshearer.org

A Private Operating Foundation in the Arts

MISSION STATEMENT
The Morrison-Shearer Foundation perpetuates the legacy of dancer-choreographer Sybil Shearer and photographer Helen Balfour Morrison and promotes new creativity in the arts.

THE FOUNDATION
The Morrison-Shearer Foundation was established in 1991 to preserve and exhibit the works and documentary materials relating to the careers of photographer Helen Balfour Morrison and dancer-choreographer Sybil Shearer; to maintain the Home and Studio as a source of inspiration for others; and to sponsor new creativity.  It is a private operating foundation supported entirely by income from the Foundation investments.

Since the death of Sybil Shearer in 2005, the Foundation has been managed by a Board of Trustees, named by Ms. Shearer and guided by her wishes as expressed in her document "Purpose and Aims of the Museum" (1985).  The Foundation’s current priorities are to complete the publication of Sybil Shearer’s three-volume autobiography, Without Wings the Way is Steep; to preserve and archive all photographs, films, letters, manuscripts, reviews and other memorabilia; to provide modest annual Board-initiated grants in support of current work in the arts, especially dance; to explore the possibilities of creating an artists’ retreat at the home and studio in Northbrook, Illinois; and to share the Morrison-Shearer legacy through a website and other means.

MORRISON-SHEARER FOUNDATION TRUSTEES:

Tain Balfour	Carol Doty (chair)	Sarah Rigdon
Susan Bodine Bolea	John Macdonald	Alida Szabo
Jim Cunningham	Toby Nicholson	Mary Sue Wheeler

SYBIL SHEARER   (February 23, 1912 - November 17, 2005)
Sybil Shearer was a leading pioneer of modern dance and arguably one of the finest dancers of the 20th century.  She began her career at Bennington and in New York with the Humphrey-Weidman Company and Agnes de Mille.  After a critically acclaimed solo debut at Carnegie Hall in 1941, Ms. Shearer moved to Chicago, where she worked independently, close to nature, and in her own unorthodox way. Soon after arriving, she met photographer, Helen Balfour Morrison, who became her lighting director, photographer, filmographer, and artistic collaborator for the next forty years. Ms. Shearer has been described as an original, provocative, unpredictable, a maverick, a poet of movement, a near legendary figure, and a gentle rebel.  Critic Walter Terry called her "one of the world's foremost dancers" (Saturday Review, Feb 7, 1979), stating that her "technical skill, creative independence, and unpredictable innovations have made her what is known as 'a dancer's dancer'."
Praise for Sybil Shearer

HELEN BALFOUR MORRISON   (August 1, 1901 – November 6, 1984)
In the 1930s and 1940s, Helen Balfour Morrison photographed some 200 notable personalities, among them Robert Frost, Helen Hayes, Nelson Algren, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein, Mies van der Rohe, Amelia Earhart, Jane Addams, and Saul Bellow; as well as persons from all walks of life. Most of these portrait sessions took place in Chicago or in New York.  Morrison was said to be able to "photograph the soul" (art critic J. B. Newman); and to possess the "uncanny ability to look into people and let the surface of a person reveal the inner being on a momentary as well as an eternal basis" (Sybil Shearer, 1990). Her collaboration with Sybil Shearer produced a large collection of extraordinary dance photographs and films, as well as an intense and sensitive documentation of the life of this artist. Today her extensive portfolio remains largely unpublished and unknown.

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NOW AVAILABLE!
To order, please contact the Morrison-Shearer Foundation

Within This Thicket, the first of three autobiographical volumes, is now available.  It traces Ms. Shearer's early life as an aspiring artist and includes a DVD with archival dance footage.  Ensuing volumes will trace Ms. Shearer's prime as an acclaimed soloist/choreographer and her later years as a dance writer/critic.  The abundance of letters in all three volumes provides a unique historical and personal view.

From the Sybil Shearer Tribute, held at The Art Institute of Chicago 2006
Sue Bodine Bolea, David Kavish, Ethel Untermeyer, Toby Nicholson, John Neumeier, Gerald Arpino, Tom Jaremba.
(Mr. Neumeier is Director and Chief Choreographer of the Hamburg Ballet.
Mr. Arpino is Co-founder and Director Emeritus of the Joffrey Ballet.)