Morgan Smith

Morgan Sparks Smith was born on the sixteenth of February 1910 at Lexington, Kentucky, the son of Wade Hampton Smith — a Kentucky farm worker — and Sue Lavinia Smith. He was the identical twin brother of Marvin Smith (placed in this archive) and was raised on the Smith family farm at Nicholasville, Kentucky and at the family relocation to Harlem, New York in 1933.

He completed the principal Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project art training at New York in 1935 — together with his brother Marvin — and studied painting at the Harlem Community Art Center under Augusta Savage from 1935 to 1937.

He co-founded with his twin brother Marvin Smith the principal M & M Smith Studio at 243 West 125th Street at Harlem in 1937 — the principal portrait and event-photography studio of the central Harlem entertainment district. The M & M Smith Studio operated at the West 125th Street address from 1937 to 1968.

He was the principal commercial-and-event photographer of the Smith brother partnership — and managed the principal commercial bookings of the M & M Smith Studio across the thirty-one years of operation.

He was the principal Apollo Theater event photographer of the post-1939 Apollo Theater period — and photographed the principal Apollo Amateur Night winners, the Apollo Theater opening nights, and the Apollo Theater backstage personalities across the 1940s and 1950s.

He was the principal documentary photographer of the principal Harlem street life of the 1940s — including the principal photographs of the 1943 Harlem riot, the V-J Day celebrations at Harlem of August 1945, the principal post-war Harlem nightclub circuit, and the principal Joe Louis homecoming celebrations at Harlem of the late 1940s.

He was the principal portrait photographer of the principal Harlem boxing-and-jazz community across the 1940s — including the principal portraits of Sugar Ray Robinson at his Sugar Ray's nightclub on 124th Street, the principal Joe Louis portraits of the late-1940s heavyweight period, and the principal Jack Johnson portraits of the closing years of Johnson's life.

He relocated to Los Angeles, California in 1968 at the closing of the M & M Smith Studio — and operated the principal Morgan Smith Studio at Los Angeles from 1968 to his retirement in 1985.

He died at Los Angeles on the third of February 1993 of natural causes, at eighty-two.

He is honored here as the principal Apollo Theater photographer of the 1940s and 1950s.