Chicago
1948
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print mounted on paperboard
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 5.7 x 5.5 cm (2 1/4 x 2 3/16 in.) mount: 32.5 x 12.9 cm (12 13/16 x 5 1/16 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ann Solomon
Accession Number
1994.92.5
Art Historical Context
Harry Callahan's *Chicago* (1948) captures the essence of mid-century urban America through the lens of one of photography's modernist pioneers. A professor at Chicago's Institute of Design—successor to the Bauhaus—Callahan was renowned for his innovative approach to straight photography, blending sharp detail with abstract compositions. This gelatin silver print, trimmed to a diminutive 5.7 x 5.5 cm, likely depicts the city's geometric architecture, distilling towering structures into rhythmic patterns of light and shadow amid post-World War II renewal. The medium, a gelatin silver print mou...
About the Artist
Harry Callahan
Harry Morey Callahan (1912–1999) was a pioneering American photographer whose self-taught ingenuity transformed everyday scenes into profound visual poetry. Born in Detroit, Michigan, he briefly studied engineering at Michigan State University before working at Chrysler, where he joined the company camera club. In 1938, Callahan took up photography as a hobby, but a 1941 lecture by Ansel Adams ins...