Harry Callahan miscellaneous acquisitions collection

Harry Callahan was born in Detroit, Michigan on October 22, 1912. In his early years Callahan worked for Chrysler, leaving to study at Michigan State University and later returning after dropping out. It was at Chrysler that Callahan discovered photography after joining the camera club there. In 1933 Callahan met his wife Eleanor Knapp while the pair were both working at Chrysler and were set up on a blind date; they married in 1936. By 1938 Callahan was becoming a self-taught photographer, but it was not until he saw Ansel Adams speak on the topic of photography in 1941 that Callahan began to take photography and his work with it seriously. During this period Callahan formed a friendship with fellow photographer Todd Webb. In 1946 Callahan was invited to teach at the Institute of Design in Chicago by László Moholy-Nagy. Callahan and Eleanor welcomed their first and only child, Barbara, in 1950. 1961 saw a move to Rhode Island for Callahan, in order to install a photography program at the Rhode Island School of Design. Callahan would remain at the school until his retirement in 1977. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996.

Callahan was not one for keeping diaries or taking many notes; little is known about his creative process. Callahan felt that the photographer should turn the lens on himself and use his own life as a subject, which was a model he followed and a concept he taught to his students. Every morning Callahan would embark on a photographic journey through his neighborhood and spend his evenings developing the photographs he had taken that morning. Many of the photographs included not only Callahan’s neighborhood but also Barbara and Eleanor. Eleanor was the subject of Callahan’s photos appearing most frequently in the years from 1947-1960. He was highly experimental in his work with Eleanor and explored techniques such as double and triple exposure, large and small format film, and blurs. Callahan took many photos but produced very few final products, producing about a dozen final images a year. He is considered an innovator of American photography and is noted for his work with black and white images.