Harry Callahan archive

Series I: BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIALS: Materials related to the life, family, and career of Callahan.

Series II: CORRESPONDENCE: This series consists largely of letters received by Callahan. The arrangement is chronological. A few carbon copies and rough drafts of his outgoing letters are present and interfiled in the correspondence. A very few family letters are also interfiled. This series contains handwritten and typed letters, telegrams, greeting cards, and postcards. There are letters from Callahan’s colleagues, friends, curators, publishers, and students; requests to reproduce his photographs by publishers; and information concerning his exhibitions and lectures at museums, galleries, and educational institutions. There is little correspondence concerning Callahan's tenure at the Institute of Design, Chicago (1946-61), or his activities after the early 1980s.

Series III: EXHIBITION FILES: This series consists of letters, announcements, installation views, checklists, and other materials documenting Callahan’s solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad.

Series IV: PUBLICATION PROJECTS: This series consists of files compiled by Callahan related to his major publishing projects. Included are letters to and from Callahan, royalty statements, checklists, contracts, printer’s proof sheets, and materials used to market publications.

Series V: WRITINGS ABOUT CALLAHAN: This series consists of manuscripts of writings about Callahan that were sent to him for review or approval. Other texts are found in the exhibition files, publication files, and correspondence. Files are arranged by the author’s name.

Series VI: BOOKS, CATALOGS, MAGAZINES, AND POSTERS: This series contains a wide variety of published materials, by or about Callahan, both as intact originals and in the form of clippings, copies, excerpts, and tearsheets. Materials are arranged chronologically.

Series VII: AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: Consists of two items: an 8 mm. film titled Harry Callahan, Eleanor and Barbara, produced by Edgar Howard in 1984; and one audio cassette of a question and answer session which occurred during the exhibition Eleanor: Photographs by Harry Callahan at the Art Institute of Chicago, 1984.

Series VIII: PHOTOGRAPHIC MATERIALS: The bulk of the Harry Callahan Archive consists of photographic materials documenting Callahan's career from the 1940s to the 1990s. These materials consist of black and white as well as color negatives, transparencies, proof prints, and contact prints. In the absence of a clear organizing principle established by Callahan, materials have been arranged in groupings first by format and then by subject matter. Occasionally Callahan selected and arranged particular groups of negatives and gave them unique numbers. All groupings established by the photographer have been preserved. A concerted effort has been made to cross-reference negatives, both numbered and un-numbered, to the specific accession numbers of fine prints existing in the Center’s collection.