Store Front and Reflections
c. 1943
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
gelatin silver print
Dimensions
sheet (trimmed to image): 7.2 x 11 cm (2 13/16 x 4 5/16 in.) mat: 35.56 x 27.94 cm (14 x 11 in.)
Classification
Photograph
Department
CPH
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of the Collectors Committee
Accession Number
1990.83.3
Art Historical Context
Harry Callahan's *Store Front and Reflections*c. 1943) captures the gritty poetry of urban life in mid-20th-century America through a modest gelatin silver print, a black-and-white medium that dominated fine art photography at the time. Shot during World War II, when Callahan was honing his craft in Chicago, this intimate 7.2 x 11 cm image likely depicts a storefront window mirroring the bustling street, blending reality with illusion in a hallmark of his modernist style. As a key figure in the Chicago School of Photography and later head of the photography department at the Institute of Desig...
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...