Chicago

Harry Callahan

A one-time clerk at Chrysler Motors, Harry Callahan ultimately became one of America’s most respected and influential photographers and educators; his frames are revered for their elegance, precision, sensuality, and experimentation. Breaking with mid-century convention, he eschewed documentation and treated photography as a means of personal expression. While his subject matter—​​nature, the urban environment, his wife, and his daughter Barbara—remained the same throughout his career, he moved freely between unconventional figuration and formal abstraction, embracing a variety of photographic processes and materials. Callahan taught alongside László Moholy-Nagy at the New Bauhaus for 15 years. In 1961, he transferred to the Rhode Island School of Design, where he founded the school’s photography program. During his lifetime, Callahan enjoyed solo exhibitions at institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Pompidou, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. In 1978, he became the first photographer to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship and the National Medal of Arts, and his work belongs to the world’s most prestigious public collections. At auction, Callahan’s photographs have fetched six figures.