Harry Callahan

Harry Callahan was born in Detroit, Michigan on October 22, 1912. Callahan attended Michigan State College in East Lansing and studied engineering but left school after three semesters to work as a shipping clerk with He left school in 1933 and obtained a job as a shipping clerk for Chrysler. On this same year, Callahan met his future wife, Eleanor Knapp, which he considered to be one of the two greatest events of his life, the other being the purchase of his first camera in 1928. Around 1933, Callahan began taking pictures as a hobby. Ansel Adams gave a workshop in 1941 at the Detroit Photo Guild where Callahan was a member. By 1944, Callahan was a processing assistant at the General Motors Photographic Laboratories in Detroit.Callahan realized that his urban background influenced the subjects he chose. Callahan met Alfred Stieglitz in 1942, but was reluctant to show the master photographer any of his own work. However, four years later, Steiglitz was stunned by Callahan’s work. After viewing Stieglitz photographs of his wife, Callahan began taking many intimate pictures of his own wife Eleanor, and of his daughter, Barbara. In 1961, Callahan was hired to teahc at the Institute of Design in Chicago.Callahan supported and taught the idea that an art form like photography was as much machine-made as it was man made. Critics have said, "his photographs can be viewed as a lifelong challenge to the camera's eye, a series of never ending questions on the nature of the medium itself.” In 1959, after a 15 month obscursion to France, Callahan returned to America but felt he had outgrown his hometown Chicago. That same year, Callahan accepted a position as director of the photography department at the Rhode Island School of Design. This change of scene gave him a new canvas to explore. During the 1970’s, Callahan produced his Cape Cod images of sea, sand, and beaches that were quite different from his earlier work. Towards the end of his career, Callahan experimenting with color photography. He worked with color film, taking pictures in Rhode Island as well as Morocco, Portugal, and Ireland.

a processing assistant at the General Motors Photographic Laboratories in Detroit.

•Callahan realized that his urban background influenced the subjects he chose.