Callahan Harry

(b Detroit, 22 Oct 1912; d Atlanta, GA, 15 March 1999).

American photographer. He took up photography in 1938, at the relatively late age of 26. Ansel Adams visited the Detroit Photo Guild in 1941 and Callahan was inspired by his emphasis on craftsmanship and his majestic images. Callahan’s earliest works focused on the calligraphic details of landscape, such as the patterns of grass against snow or telephone wires against the sky, or explored the effects of multiple exposures. Later subjects included studies of his wife Eleanor, a series of portraits made on Chicago’s State Street in 1950, a series of houses at Providence, RI, and Cape Cod beachscapes begun in the 1960s. Whether working in black and white or, later, in colour, as in Harry Callahan: Color (New York, 1980), Callahan was committed in all his work to what he called ‘the moment that people can’t always see’.

Callahan Harry
     


 

1945
Eleanor
     

1948
Eleanor
          

1949
Eleanor
       

   

1953
Eleanor
        

   

1968