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Harry Callahan archive

 Collection
Identifier: AG 29

Scope and Contents

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.

Dates

  • 1930s - 2001

Creator

Language of Materials

Material in English

Conditions Governing Access

To access materials from this collection, please contact CCP-RefDesk@email.arizona.edu

Conditions Governing Use

Copyrights to Harry Callahan’s photographs and writings are held by the artist’s estate.

It is the responsibility of the user to obtain permission from the copyright owner (which could be the institution, the creator of the record, the author or his/her transferees, heirs, legates or literary executors) prior to any copyright-protected uses of the collection.

The user agrees to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Arizona Board of Regents, the University of Arizona, Center of Creative Photography, including its officers, employees, and agents, from and against all claims made relating to copyright or other intellectual property infringement

Historical Note

Papers, publications, audio-visual materials, and photographic materials, 1930s - 2001, of Harry Callahan (1912 - 1999), photographer and teacher. Includes correspondence, biographical information, activity files, exhibition files, books, magazines, a film, and extensive files of negatives, contact prints, proof prints, slides, and transparencies.

Extent

96 Linear Feet

Metadata Rights Declarations

  • License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Abstract

Papers, publications, audio-visual materials, and photographic materials, 1930s - 2001, of Harry Callahan (1912 - 1999), photographer and teacher. Includes correspondence, biographical information, activity files, exhibition files, books, magazines, a film, and extensive files of negatives, contact prints, proof prints, slides, and transparencies. The collection is inactive.

Arrangement

The Collection is arranged in ten series:

  1. Series 1: Biographical materials
  2. Series 2: Correspondence
  3. Series 3: Exhibition files
  4. Series 4: Publication projects
  5. Series 5: Writings about Callahan
  6. Series 6: Books, catalogs, magazines, and posters
  7. Series 7: Audiovisual materials
  8. Series 8: Photographic materials
  9. Subseries 1: Proof prints
  10. Subseries 2: Negatives
  11. Subseries 3: Slides
  12. Series 9: Miscellaneous materials
  13. Series 10: Empty, original photographic paper boxes

Custodial History

This collection was purchased from Harry Callahan in 1975 with the first acquisition arriving in 1976. The bulk of the archive arrived in two shipments from the artist in 1979. The last group of materials arrived in 2001.

Processing Information

Processed by CCP staff. Finding Aid updated in 2001.

Title
Harry Callahan Archive 1930s-2001
Author
Finding aid created by CCP Archives Staff
Date
© 2019
Description rules
Finding Aid Based On Dacs (Describing Archives: A Content Standard)
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin
Language of description note
Finding aid encoded in English

Repository Details

Part of the Center for Creative Photography Archives Repository

Contact:
1030 N. Olive RD
Tucson Arizona 85721 United States