Eleanor, Chicago
1948
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image: 6.2 x 6 cm (2 7/16 x 2 3/8 in.) sheet: 6.8 x 6.7 cm (2 11/16 x 2 5/8 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Ann Solomon
Accession Number
2000.172.3
Art Historical Context
Harry Callahan's *Eleanor, Chicago*1948) captures an intimate moment with his wife, Eleanor, set against the backdrop of postwar Chicago. As a pioneering photographer and educator at the Institute of—successor to the New Bauhaus—Callahan was at the forefront of American modernist photography. This small gelatin silver print, measuring just over 6 cm square, exemplifies his experimental approach, favoring close-up, abstracted views that blurred the lines between portraiture and abstraction. The gelatin silver process, a staple of mid-20th-century black-and-white photography, allowed Callahan t...
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...