He began leading collaborative student projects to
photograph local public housing developments, the
elderly, and an extended record of the buildings of
Louis Sullivan. ‘‘The Sullivan Project,’’ as the latter
came to be known, began in the fall of 1952, and
involved students such as Len Gittleman and
Richard Nickel. The students documented Sullivan
buildings throughout Chicago and the Midwest,
exhibited the photographs, and planned to publish
a book; although the book never happened, Nickel
made the project the subject of his 1957 master’s
thesis and worked to preserve the buildings. In
1956, Callahan and Siskind outlined the under-
graduate curriculum in an article inAperturecalled
‘‘Learning Photography at the Institute of De-
sign.’’ They described the course of study over
four years, from undertaking the foundation
course, then clarifying technique, then experiencing
the photographic disciplines or traditions (such as
portraiture, journalism, architecture, and so on),
and finally engaging in a planned project. Their
goal, as they stated it, was ‘‘from within the frame-
work of a broad professional education to open an
individual way.’’ This was the beginning of a
marked departure for photography at the Institute
of Design; it became at once more vocational and
more personally expressive.
In the spring of 1950, a few students had
approached Callahan asking to continue on in a
graduate capacity, but the school offered no further
study in photography. Callahan convinced IIT to
allow a graduate degree, and, later with Siskind,
guided the students in producing a concentrated
series, or body of work. In 1952, the first Master’s
of Science degrees in photography were granted to
Marvin Newman, Jordan Bernstein, and Floyd
Dunphey; Newman’s thesis was an exploration of
the series form itself. The thesis project became the
model for future graduate study at the ID, and
indeed for advanced photographic inquiry through-
out the country. Many students would go on to
conduct sustained photographic projects and re-
ceived master’s degrees at the Institute of Design,
and many of these would institute similar programs
in schools across the United States.
Some key events in the late 1950s shaped the way
the ID’s photographic program evolved. In 1955,
the school selected a new director, Jay Doblin; that
same year, it moved from Dearborn Avenue on the
north side to Crown Hall, on IIT’s south-side cam-
pus. Doblin, a commercial designer whose appoint-
ment was protested by most of the faculty and
students because of his business orientation, had
little interest in artistic photography. At the same
time, however, he allowed the small program to
continue without much interference from the
administration, and this relative isolation provided
Callahan and Siskind with a great deal of freedom.
The move to Crown Hall physically integrated the
ID with IIT but removed the school from the city’s
center of activity. The photography program also
began to gain some a national reputation through
the stature of Callahan and Siskind as well as such
publications as theirApertureessay;The Student
Independent, a 1957 student-produced portfolio in
an edition of nearly 500; and the ID’s first book,
The Multiple Image: Photographs by Harry Calla-
han, published in 1961.
In 1961, Aperture also published an issue
devoted to the graduate photography program at
the ID, with an introduction by Arthur Siegel and
featuring the thesis photographs of Joseph Jachna,
Kenneth Josephson, Ray K. Metzker, Joseph Ster-
ling, and Charles Swedlund. Among the top stu-
dents in the program, all five would go on to
successful photographic and teaching careers.
Jachna explored water in his thesis, while Joseph-
son studied the multiple image in different forms,
Metzker documented Chicago’s Loop, Sterling
focused in on the American teenager, and Swed-
lund presented an experimental approach to the
nude. Although quite different in subject matter
and approach, all shared a certain ID style—con-
trasty black and white and based in a graphic
sensibility—and a goal of personal expression
through sustained inquiry. In a shift away from
Moholy’s original idea of photography as part of
an integrated curriculum, it had now become a
separate discipline, and experimentation was now
put to the service of picture-making. The most
important change at—and contribution of—the
ID in this period was the emphasis on individuality
and subjectivity in photography, and the develop-
ment of the series and body of work. More change
would occur in the 1960s, with the departure of
Harry Callahan and a changing academic and poli-
tical climate.The Institute of Design, 1961–1978: The
Siskind and Siegel Years
In 1961, Callahan left the Institute of Design to join
the faculty at the Rhode Island School of Design,
and Siskind became the head of the Photography
Department. During the 1960s and into the 1970s,
there were many important changes at the school.
An increasingly large number of students joined the
graduate program and earned master’s degrees in
this period, and the photography program, under
Siskind’s leadership and eventually that of ArthurINSTITUTE OF DESIGN