Eleanor
c. 1948
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
image/sheet: 5.8 × 5.4 cm (2 5/16 × 2 1/8 in.) mount: 6.5 × 6.3 cm (2 9/16 × 2 1/2 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Stephen G. Stein
Accession Number
2021.5.7
Art Historical Context
Harry Callahan's *Eleanor (c. 1948) is a intimate gelatin silver print, capturing the artist's wife in a, abstracted close-up. Measuring just 5.8 ×5.4 cm, this diminutive photograph exemplifies Callahan's post-World War II experimentation at Chicago's Institute of Design where he taught and honed his modernist vision alongside influences like László Moholy-Nagy. for his straight photography with a twist, Callahan transformed everyday subjects—especially his muse Eleanor—into studies of light, form, and texture, blurring the line between portraiture and abstraction. The gelatin silver process,...
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...