HARRY CALLAHAN – FROM A RECENTLY ACQUIRED COLLECTION
2019-09-30The photographs in the exhibition express the constant formal and conceptual concerns that give unity to Harry Callahan’s treatment of some of his favorite subjects. The intimate landscape, including views of fields, leaves, and weeds of Aix-en-Provence, the sandy beaches of Cape Cod and the snowy shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago (trees in snow), c. 1950, exemplify Callahan’s reduction of photography’s unbroken scale of tones to the extreme whites, the pure blacks, and a middle gray in scenes with details that are delicate and inexhaustibly intricate. The studies of his beloved wife Eleanor reveal her as an individual, an icon, and a symbol of all woman — no matter how small a part of the scene, Eleanor dominates the viewer’s eye. Callahan’s technical experimentation in thematic synthesis, including multiple exposures, is represented by a pristine example of Detroit, 1943, one of three known multiple-exposure images of Detroit streets that Callahan created in 1943 with his 9 x 12 cm Linhof camera. The image is tied to reality yet freed from traditional representational qualities that challenges perceptions.
Opposite – Eleanor, 1948
Exhibition runs through to October 19th, 2019
Robert Mann Gallery
525 West 26th Street, Floor 2
New York
10001 NY
