• Harry Callahan is one of the 20th century's most recognized photographers. Both an artist and teacher, his influence changed the...
    Harry Callahan is one of the 20th century's most recognized photographers. Both an artist and teacher, his influence changed the way we think about the possibilities of photographic expression and the relationships between art and life.  His influences can be seen in generations of photographers that have come after him.
     
    Most famous for his black-in-white work of urban scenes, nature, nudes, his family, and a variety of photographic abstractions, it is less known that he was one of the  pioneers of color photography. 

     

    Throughout the course of his career his most consistent subject has been the city. He mostly focused on cities he resided in or frequently traveled to including Detroit, Chicago, New York, Providence and finally the last city he lived in, Atlanta. 
     
    The Street: In Color exhibition focuses on Callahan's multiple exposure, color dye-transfer photographs taken on one of his favorite stages, the city streets. Created by running the film through the camera twice the resulting images are a combination of reality instinct, intuition, imagination and chance resulting in complex, yet honest and simple images that reflect who the artist was as a person.
      
  • Early on, Callahan was inspired by the clarity and precision of Ansel Adams' work. Adams was a mentor who introduced...

    Early on, Callahan was inspired by the clarity and precision of Ansel Adams' work. Adams was a mentor who introduced him to the religion of photography and impressed on him the importance in understanding the intrinsic potentials of the camera, film and paper. This early influence was just the beginning of his artistic transformation. His work was later informed by mentors and friends, László Moholy-Nagy, Alfred Stieglitz, Aaron Siskind, and Todd Webb to name a few. 

  • He began photographing and experimenting in color from the very beginning of his career in the 1940s until 1977, after...

    He began photographing and experimenting in color from the very beginning of his career in the 1940s until 1977, after a major retrospective of his black-and-white work at the Museum of Modern Art, he began exclusively working in color. This shift was inspired by a feeling and need for a new challenge. He felt he had solved most of the visual problems that interested him in the monochromatic medium that he had become so recognized for. Many of the thematic elements of his black-in-white work crossed over to his color work. His color work explores chromatic concerns but also continues his interest in the city, patterns, isolated figures lost in thought (often female), simple compositions, and contrast between light and shadow. 

  • "I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me that makes photography more exciting."

    - Harry Callahan
  • 'This film interprets the life and work of American photographer Harry Callahan, guided by his thoughts about photography and reminiscences...

     

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    "This film interprets the life and work of American photographer Harry Callahan, guided by his thoughts about photography and reminiscences of Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Aaron Siskind. The film includes Callahan at work in 1973 and 1983, segments of his films, archival film of him teaching at the Rhode Island School of Design and recent interviews. A moving tribute to one of this century’s most distinguished photographers." Distributed by MOMA, Circulating Film Library.

  • "The enemy of photography is the convention, the fixed rules of the "how-to-do." The salvation of photography comes from the experiment.  The experimenter has no preconceived idea about photography.  He does not believe that photography is only as it is known today, the exact repetition and rendering of the customary vision.  He does not think that the photographic mistakes should be avoided since they are usually "mistakes" only from the routine angle of the historic development.  He dares to call "photography" all the results which can be achieved with photographic means with camera or without."  
    -László Moholy-Nagy

  • AVAILABLE WORKS

  • Harry Callahan Atlanta, 1984 Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso Dye transfer print Image: 9 9/16 x 14...
    Harry Callahan Atlanta, 1984 Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso Dye transfer print Image: 9 9/16 x 14...
    Harry Callahan
    Atlanta, 1984
    Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso
    Dye transfer print
    Image: 9 9/16 x 14 7/16 inches
    Paper: 17 3/8 x 21 1/2 inches
    $8,000
    Inquire
  • Harry Callahan Providence, 1984 Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso Dye transfer print Image: 9 9/16 x 14...
    Harry Callahan Providence, 1984 Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso Dye transfer print Image: 9 9/16 x 14...
    Harry Callahan
    Providence, 1984
    Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso
    Dye transfer print
    Image: 9 9/16 x 14 7/16 inches
    Paper: 17 3/16 x 21 5/16 inches
    $8,000
    Inquire
    • Harry Callahan, New York, 1977
      Harry Callahan, New York, 1977
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    • Harry Callahan, Providence, 1962
      Harry Callahan, Providence, 1962
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  • Harry Callahan Providence, 1971 Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso Dye transfer print Image: 7 5/16 x 7...
    Harry Callahan Providence, 1971 Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso Dye transfer print Image: 7 5/16 x 7...
    Harry Callahan
    Providence, 1971
    Signed in pencil recto; annotations in pencil verso
    Dye transfer print
    Image: 7 5/16 x 7 3/16 inches
    Paper: 9 5/16 x 8 11/16 inches
    $8,000
    Inquire

  • Click here to inquire about other avalible works