Harry Morey Callahan (October 22, 1912 – March 15, 1999) was an American photographer and educator. He taught at both the Institute of Design in Chicago and the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

. Callahan's first solo exhibition was at the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

in 1951. He had a retrospective at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York in 1976/1977. Callahan was a recipient of the

Edward MacDowell Medal The Edward MacDowell Medal is an award which has been given since 1960 to one person annually who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and the arts. It is given by MacDowell, the first artist residency program in the United Sta ...

and the

National Medal of Arts The National Medal of Arts is an award and title created by the United States Congress in 1984, for the purpose of honoring artists and Patronage, patrons of the arts. A prestigious American honor, it is the highest honor given to artists and ar ...

. He represented the United States in the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

in 1978.

Early life

Harry Morey Callahan was born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. He worked at

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

when he was a young man then left the company to study engineering at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. He dropped out, returned to Chrysler and joined its camera club. Callahan began teaching himself photography in 1938. He formed a friendship with

Todd Webb Todd Webb (September 5, 1905 – April 15, 2000) was an American photographer notable for documenting everyday life and architecture in cities such as New York City, Paris as well as from the American west. He traveled extensively during his l ...

who was also to become a photographer. A talk given by

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advoca ...

in 1941 inspired him to take his work seriously. In 1941, Callahan and Webb visited Rocky Mountain State Park but didn't return with any photographs. In 1946 he was invited to teach photography at the Institute of Design in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the i ...

. He moved to Rhode Island in 1961 to establish a photography program at the

, eventually inviting his close friend and fellow artist Aaron Siskind to join him, teaching there until his retirement in 1977.

Career

Callahan left almost no written records—no diaries, letters, scrapbooks or teaching notes. His technical photographic method was to go out almost every morning, walk through the city he lived in and take numerous pictures. He then spent almost every afternoon making proof prints of that day's best negatives. Yet, for all his photographic activity, Callahan, at his own estimation, produced no more than half a dozen final images a year. He photographed his wife and daughter and the streets, scenes and buildings of cities where he lived, showing a strong sense of line and form, and light and darkness. Even prior to birth, his daughter showed up in photographs of Eleanor's pregnancy. From 1948 to 1953 Eleanor, and sometimes Barbara, were shown out in the landscape as a tiny counterpoint to large expanses of park, skyline or water. He also worked with

multiple exposure In photography and cinematography, a multiple exposure is the superimposition of two or more exposures to create a single image, and double exposure has a corresponding meaning in respect of two images. The exposure values may or may not be ide ...

s. Callahan's work was a deeply personal response to his own life. He encouraged his students to turn their cameras on their own lives, leading by example. Callahan photographed his wife over a period of fifteen years, as his prime subject. Eleanor was essential to his art from 1947 to 1960. He photographed her everywhere—at home, in the city streets, in the landscape; alone, with their daughter, in black and white and in color, nude and clothed, distant and close. He tried several technical experiments—double and triple exposure, blurs, large and small format film. Callahan was one of the few innovators of modern American photography noted as much for his work in color as for his work in black and white. In 1955

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...

included his work in

The Family of Man ''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photography, photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) Department of Photography. According to Steichen, ...

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

's popular international touring exhibition. In 1956, he received the Graham Foundation Award, which allowed him to spend a year in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

with his family from 1957 to 1958. He settled in

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...

, where he took many photographs.Brochure of the Harry Callahan exhibition, French Archives, 1957-1958, Granet Museum, Aix-en-Provence, 2019 Along with the painter

Richard Diebenkorn Richard Diebenkorn (April 22, 1922 – March 30, 1993) was an American painter and printmaker. His early work is associated with abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1960s he bega ...

, he represented the United States in the

in 1978. In 1994, he selected 130 original prints with the help of the gallery owner Peter MacGill, and brought them together under the name of ''French Archives,'' to offer them to the

Maison Européenne de la Photographie The Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP; European house of photography), located in the historic heart of Paris, is a center for contemporary photographic art opened in February 1996. Location and activities The Hotel Henault de Cantobre, ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. Some of these images were taken in Aix-en-Provence and in the

South of France Southern France, also known as the South of France or colloquially in French as , is a defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Marais Poitevin,Louis Papy, ''Le midi atlantique'', A ...

, and are the subject of a temporary exhibition at the Granet Museum in Aix-en-Provence in 2019. Callahan left behind 100,000 negatives and over 10,000 proof prints. The

Center for Creative Photography The Center for Creative Photography (CCP), established in 1975 and located on the University of Arizona's Tucson campus, is a research facility and archival repository containing the full archives of over sixty of the most famous American pho ...

at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

maintains his photographic archives. In 2013, Vancouver Art Gallery received a gift of almost 600 Callahan photographs from the Larry and Cookie Rossy Family Foundation.

Personal life

Callahan met his future wife, Eleanor Knapp, on a blind date in 1933. At that time she was a secretary at Chrysler Motors in Detroit and he was a clerk. They married three years later. In 1950 their daughter Barbara was born. Callahan died in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

in 1999. His wife Eleanor died on February 28, 2012 in a hospice in

at the age of 95.

Publications

*''Harry Callahan.'' New York:

, 1967. . With an introductory essay by Paul Sherman. *''Harry Callahan: Color: 1941–1980.'' Providence, R.I.: Matrix Publications, 1980. Edited by Robert Tow and Ricker Winsor. . With a foreword by Jonathan Williams and an afterword by A. D. Coleman. *''Water's Edge.'' Lyme, CN: Callaway, 1980. . With an introductory poem by

A. R. Ammons Archibald Randolph Ammons (February 18, 1926 – February 25, 2001) was an American poet who won the annual National Book Award for Poetry in 1973 and 1993. Poetic themes Ammons wrote about humanity's relationship to nature in alternately comi ...

and an afterword by Callahan. *''Eleanor.'' New York City: Callaway, 1984. . *''Harry Callahan: New Color: Photographs 1978-1987.'' Kansas City, MO:

Hallmark Cards Hallmark Cards, Inc. is a private, family-owned American company based in Kansas City, Missouri. Founded in 1910 by Joyce Hall, Hallmark is the oldest and largest manufacturer of greeting cards in the United States. In 1985, the company was award ...

, 1988. . Edited(?) and with text by

Keith F. Davis Keith F. Davis (born 1952) is an American photography curator, collector, and the author of several books on photography. Between 1979 and 2005, Davis built the Hallmark Photographic Collection, spanning the history of American photography. In Dece ...

. Exhibition catalogue. *''Harry Callahan.'' Masters of Photography. New York:

Aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

, 1999. . With an essay by Jonathan Williams. *''Harry Callahan: Retrospective.'' Heidelberg, Germany: Kehrer, 2013. . With essays by Dirk Luckow, Peter MacGill, Sabine Schnakenberg, and Julian Cox. Exhibition catalogue. *''Harry Callahan: Photos.'' Washington, D.C.:

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, 1996. . With text by Sarah Greenough. Exhibition catalogue. *''Seven Collages.'' Göttingen:

Steidl Steidl is a German-language publisher, an international publisher of photobooks, and a printing company, based in Göttingen, Germany. It was started in 1968 by Gerhard Steidl and is still run by him. Overview The company was started by Gerha ...

, 2012. . With an essay by Julian Cox. *''Harry Callahan: The Street.'' London: Black Dog, 2016. Curated and edited by Grant Arnold. . Exhibition catalogue.

Awards

*1956: Graham Foundation Award *1993:

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowell ...

, Peterborough, NH. *1996:

Solo exhibitions

, Chicago, IL, 1951 *''Harry Callahan,''

, New York, 1976/1977. A retrospective.

Collections

Callahan's work is held in the following permanent collections: *

: 105 works (as of April 2019) *

George Eastman Museum The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

: 112 works (as of April 2019) *

Museum of Contemporary Photography The Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP) was founded in 1976 by Columbia College Chicago as the successor to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography. The museum houses a permanent collection as well as the Midwest Photographers Project ...

: 28 works (as of April 2019) *

, New York: 243 works (as of April 2019) *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

: 151 works (as of September 2019)

References

External links

"Harry Callahan"
Pace/MacGill Gallery {{DEFAULTSORT:Callahan, Harry 1912 births 1999 deaths Artists from Detroit Illinois Institute of Technology faculty Rhode Island School of Design faculty United States National Medal of Arts recipients 20th-century American photographers