Harry Callahan : Photographs by Harry Callahan

by National Gallery of Art, Sarah Greenough

A compilation of Harry Callahan's photographs throughout hs career ranges from 1912 to 1999 and reveals how he used double exposures, color, extreme contrast, and wide-angle photography to creat lyrical, highly personal images. Original. 10,000 first printing.

Genres: Photography, Art

Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Jereme · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great text on Callahan and his evolution as a photographer. Great selection of images, both black and white and color (though the long timeframe covered means the book is only able to touch on Callahan's various themes). Unfortunately, the images are printed too small to really be as effective.as they could. The 1976 retrospective, while not as strong in content, offers a better look at Callahan's images.

[Philippe · Rating 4 out of 5]

"A photo is able to capture a moment that people can't always see with their eyes. It helps you to see more of life around you. Wanting to see more makes you grow as a person, and growing makes you want to show more of life around you." - HC, 1951

"I sort of believe that a picture is like a prayer; you're offering a prayer to get something, and in a sense it's like a gift of God because you have practically no control - at least I don't. But I wouldn't make a pronouncement out of it. I just don't know what makes a picture, really - the thing that makes something unique, as far as I can understand. Just like one guy can write a sentence and it's beautiful and another guy writes it and it's dead. What that difference is, I don't know. That's as far as I'm religious; In don't believe in any religion." - HC, 1972

"My concern is the art of telling you something about my instinctive visual life. Not through storytelling photographs but through something that has developed from an enormous body of work. And it is not a certain kind of style that I am concerned with. For me that is not enough - that is like spending a lifetime gathering a butterfly collection.

I think that nearly every artist continually wants to reach the edge of nothingness - the point where you can't go farther. I feel I have come close to that at various times with the Beach Series photographs. A determined single-mindedness and an insistent inner need has led me to that point. That is why I always have kept going back, and this is still what keeps me going today - keeps my alive." - HC, 1980

This beautiful book gives a longitudinal overview of almost the entire career of Harry Callahan (the photographer died three years after the book's publication). The print quality is excellent. The introductory essay by curator Sarah Greenough is a very good primer for those new to Callahan's life and work. The chronology at the back, supplemented by many illuminating quotes in which the artist speaks out about his work, is a wonderful bonus.


Eleanor and Barbara, Chicago, 1953
(image: Harry Callahan, collection of Pace McGill Gallery, New York)

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Explains that he was influenced by Adams. Features buildings, various images, at times partial images, occasional bare skin, grass, double exposure, beaches, residences, and more.

[Jeannie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had the absolute pleasure to see a number of photographs in this collection in an exhibit at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. The fineness of Callahan's work remains, to me, unparalleled.