Dancer and choreographer Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (1919-2009) was studying acting at the Cornish School in Seattle in 1939 when Martha Graham saw Cunningham dance and invited him to join her company. Cunningham immediately moved to New York and remained at the forefront of the American modern dance for more than 50 years. He also frequently collaborated with artists from other disciplines, producing works that had a profound impact on avant-garde art beyond the world of dance.

In this image Merce Cunningham, left, sits with painter Morris Graves, possibly in conjunction with Graves' exhibition at Seattle Art Museum. Cunningham had known Graves from Seattle's fertile late-1930s cultural scene. Graves (1910-2001) was one of the defining artists of the "Northwest School," an art movement which combined natural elements of the Puget Sound area with traditional Asian aesthetics to create a novel and distinct regional style.

Caption information source: The Seattle Sunday Times, September 3, 1950, page 37
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.