An animated Google doodle features dancing women who spell out the name of the search engine with their bodies.
The five movements by the women in the doodle were actually devised by Graham in the 1920s and 1930s before being copied by dance companies all over the world.
Graham was considered one of the pioneering figures of modern dance.
She choreographed some 180 pieces and collaborated with such composers as Aaron Copland and Samuel Barber. She retired as a dancer in the early 1970s, but continued to create new pieces well into her tenth decade.
Graham danced and choreographed for over 70 years and was the first dancer to perform at the White House. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 by President Ford.
She once said: "I have spent all my life with dance and being a dancer. It's permitting life to use you in a very intense way. Sometimes it is not pleasant. Sometimes it is fearful. But nevertheless it is inevitable."
As the founder of the Martha Graham Centre of Contemporary Dance her principal dancers included Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor and Twyla Tharp. She also taught the pop star Madonna.
Graham died on April 1, 1991 at the age of 96. In 1998 Time magazine named her as the “Dancer of the Century”.