Harry Callahan : Photographs by Harry Callahan [Paperback]

National Gallery of Art (Author), Sarah Greenough (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2001

Throughout his career, Harry Callahan quietly but consistently explored new ways of looking at and presenting the world in his photographs. His nature and landscape photography were influenced by Ansel Adams; however, Callahan was boldly innovative and experimental with the technical side of photography, using double exposures and extreme contrast, wide-angle lenses and colour to create lyrical, highly personal photographs. He was celebrated as a photographer of nature, the city and women, often with his wife as a model. This book first accompanied Callahan's National Gallery of Art exhibition and it traces the numerous experiments Callahan made throughout his career through 119 reproduced photographs.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This excellent collection of Callahan's photographs accompanies a national tour of his work. Curator Greenough's (Robert Frank: Moving Out, LJ 10/15/94) decision to arrange the images chronologically works well to illustrate both the themes central to the photographer's aesthetic and his development as an artist. From early experiments using multiple exposures and light painting to the most recent color cityscapes, Callahan has sought to explore photography's potential. He often returned again and again to the same subject in a quest for yet a new way to "see" it via the camera. Now in his eighties, Callahan is a 20th-century master of American photography who places the highest value on the process of self-realization through image-making rather than on any individual photograph or series of photographs. His life's work stands as convincing testimony to this ideal. This retrospective will be a fine addition to public and academic photography collections.?Kathy J. Anderson, Indiana Univ., Bloomington
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Photographer Callahan has been at the top of the list for half a century (he had his first one-man show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1948), and because his pictures have been so individual, so elegant, so purely seen, they are as fresh today as ever. The plainspoken Callahan decided early that photography could be the medium for "some set of values that I am trying to discover and establish as being my life." He has never focused on public themes, however, but on familiar landscape and one particular woman, his wife, Eleanor. Inspired as a young man by the spectacular images of Ansel Adams, Callahan nevertheless did not require sublime landscape as material. His visual poetry has come more often from a few blades of grass or a barren city street. A pure photographer, concerned with what he calls "the standard photographic problems" --focus, contrast, selection, motion, and multiple exposure--Callahan has maintained remarkable consistency of vision as well as a most individual voice. This book, cataloging a major retrospective exhibition, is the broadest overview of the art and the man. Even collections with much Callahan material (there is no dearth--he is well documented) should add this summative, definitive volume. Gretchen Garner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Bulfinch (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0821227270
• ISBN-13: 978-0821227275
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,923,824 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Concise Compilation, April 27, 2000

By 

Tom Rand - See all my reviews

This review is from: Harry Callahan (Hardcover)

Harry Callahan was the most influential and important figure in photography throughout the last half of the 20th century. This edition of his work shows chronologically how Callahan's approach to the medium evolved and changed, while his vision remained ever faithful to modernity. The book begins in Detroit, where Callahan worked for Chrysler while pursuing photography as a serious hobby. It was also during this time that he married Eleanor Knapp, who would later become the subject for many of his strongest images. The accompanying essay by Sarah Greenough is succinctly written, blending biographical information to the photographs Callahan took throughout his long, photographic journey (Callahan died in 1999). Callahan's outlook on photography changed dramatically after having met Ansel Adams, at a photography workshop in Detroit. Taking some of Adams' philosophy and refining it, Callahan created his own style of photographing/printing, made apparent by such images as `Weeds in Snow' and `Detroit, 1942'. In these images and throughout the rest of his life, Callahan easily turned the simplest subject matter into monumental works of photographic art. The book provides powerful examples of this, in both black & white and color. After leaving his job to pursue photography full time, Callahan moved to Chicago and taught at the Institute of Design. Continuing the experimentation he began in Detroit, Callahan worked and refined his style during his Chicago years, utilizing double exposure, collage, close-ups, and the use of positive and negative space. The book then turns to Callahan's New England period. It was during this time that Callahan taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence. The book captures this period vividly, with images of varying contrast and mood. Here we see Callahan's ability at adapting to his environment by producing increasingly poetic images of nature, as well as urban and suburban street scenes. In his later work from 1972-1992, the photographs in "Harry Callahan" document the photographer's travels in other countries, with an increased attention on color. It remains clear by the images shown in his later years, that Callahan continued to explore photography by constantly challenging himself and the medium. Where most photographers are known for one particular style or body of work (Cartier-Bresson's `decisive moment' or Robert Frank's publication of The Americans), Callahan is known for many different styles and bodies of work. The photographs in "Harry Callahan" prove this with each turn of the page. Callahan was a photographic artist in the truest sense, if we choose to believe an artists' goal is not only to create but to constantly evolve. Callahan was, continues to be, and always will be an influence to those photographers who seek not only perfection in the creation of their photographic art, but also change.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive Callahan, August 10, 2009

By 

Russ Anderson (Santa Cruz, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Harry Callahan (Hardcover)

A well balanced selection of HC's best images, though a few things are missing

I would have liked to have seen in this book.

The essay is excellent, engaging, well planned and rational,

bringing Callahan personally to the reader.

A must for any modern photography library.