Seealso: Adams, Ansel; Institute of Design;
Moholy-Nagy, La ́szlo ́; Museum of Modern Art; Sis-
kind, Aaron; Steichen, Edward
Biography
Born in Detroit, Michigan, 22 October 1912. Attended
Michigan State College but was self-educated in photo-
graphy. Instructor in photography at the Institute of
Design (ID), Chicago, 1946–49; head of ID’s Light
Workshop (the photography department), 1949–61;
instructor for summer course at Black Mountain Col-
lege, Black Mountain, North Carolina, 1951; Chairman
of the Photography Department, 1961–73, and Professor
of Photography at the Rhode Island School of Design,
Providence, Rhode Island, 1961–77. Graham Founda-
tion award for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts, 1956;
Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, 1969; John Simon Guggenheim
Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 1972; elected Fellow
of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston,
1979; recipient of first Distinguished Career in Photo-
graphy award from the Friends of Photography, Carmel,
California, 1981; Brandeis Creative Arts Medal, 1985.
Died in Atlanta, Georgia, 15 March 1999.
Individual Exhibitions
1947 Harry Callahan; 750 Studio Gallery; Chicago, Illinois
1951 Photographs by Harry Callahan; Art Institute of Chi-
cago; Chicago, Illinois
1956 Harry Callahan; Kansas City Art Institute; Kansas
City, Kansas
1958 Harry Callahan Exhibition; George Eastman House;
Rochester, New York
1964 Photographs: Harry Callahan; Hallmark Gallery; New
York and traveling
1972 Harry Callahan: The City; George Eastman House;
Rochester, New York, and traveling
1976 Callahan; Museum of Modern Art; New York, and
traveling
1978 Harry Callahan: 38thVenice Biennial 1978; United
States Pavilion; Venice, Italy
1979 Harry Callahan: Photographs in Color/The Years
1946–1978; Center for Creative Photography; University
of Arizona, Tucson, and traveling
1983 The Photography of Harry Callahan, 1941–1982; Seibu
Museum of Art; Tokyo
1984 Eleanor and Barbara: Photographs by Harry Callahan;
Art Institute of Chicago and traveling
1985 Harry Callahan: Retrospective 1941–1982; Ffotogal-
lery; Cardiff, Wales, and traveling
1996 Harry Callahan; National Gallery of Art; Washington,
DC, and traveling
Group Exhibitions
1948 In and Out of Focus; Museum of Modern Art; New
York, New York
1950 Four Photographers: Lisette Model, Bill Brandt, Ted Croner,
Harry Callahan; Museum of Modern Art; New York
1951 Abstraction in Photography; Museum of Modern Art;
New York
1953 Contemporary Photography; National Museum of
Modern Art; Tokyo, Japan
1955 The Family of Man; Museum of Modern Art; New
York, and traveling
1955 Subjektive Fotografia 2; Staatlichen Schule fu ̈r Kunst
und Handwerk; Saarbrucken, Germany
1956 American Artists Paint the City; United States Pavi-
lion, 28thBiennial; Venice, Italy
1962 Photographs by Harry Callahan and Robert Frank;
Museum of Modern Art; New York, and traveling
1968 Photographs in the Twentieth Century; National Gal-
lery of Canada; Ottawa, Ontario (organized by George
Eastman House), and traveling
1974 Landscape/Cityscape: A Selection of Twentieth-Cen-
tury American Photographs; Metropolitan Museum of
Art; New York, New York
1980 The New Vision: Forty Years of Photography at the
Institute of Design; Light Gallery; New York, New York
1983 Harry Callahan and His Students: A Study in Influence;
Georgia State University Art Gallery; Atlanta, Georgia
1987 Photography and Art: Interactions Since 1946; Los
Angeles County Museum of Art; Los Angeles, California
1989 On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty
Years of Photography; National Gallery of Art; Wa-
shington, DC, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago,
Illinois, and Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, Los
Angeles, California
1993 Light and Vision: Photography at the School of Design in
Chicago, 1937–1952; Banning and Associates; New York
1996 When Aaron Met Harry: Chicago Photography 1946–1971;
The Museum of Contemporary Photography, ChicagoSelected Works
Detroit, ca. 1947
Eleanor, 1947
Eleanor, Chicago, 1948, 1948
Chicago, ca. 1948
Eleanor, Chicago, 1953, 1953
Collage, Chicago, 1957, 1957
Water’s Edge, 1980Further Reading
Butler, Susan.Harry Callahan: Retrospective 1941–1982.
Cardiff, Wales: Ffotogallery, 1985.
Greenough, Sally.Harry Callahan. Washington: National
Gallery of Art, 1996.
Kennedy, Anne, and Nicholas Callaway, eds. Eleanor:
Photographs by Harry Callahan. Carmel, California:
Friends of Photography, 1984.
Maholy-Nagy,La ́szlo ́.Malerei, Photographie,Film,Munich,
1925 asThe Bauhaus, Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago by
Hans M. Wingler. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.
Martin, Gordon, and Aaron Siskind, eds.The Multiple
Image: Photographs by Harry Callahan. Chicago: Insti-
tute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, 1961.
Paul, Sherman.Harry Callahan. New York: The Museum
of Modern Art, 1967.
Traub, Charles, ed.The New Vision: Forty Years of Photo-
graphy at the Institute of Design. Millerton, New York:
Aperture, 1982.
Szarkowski, John.Callahan. Millerton, New York: Aper-
ture, 1976.CALLAHAN, HARRY