Richard Knoppow (dickburk@ix.netcom.com)
Wed, 17 Mar 1999 23:43:27 -0800
ATLANTA (AP) -- Harry Callahan, who focused his camera on the
ordinary and became one of the most influential photographers of
the 20th century, has died of cancer. He was 86.
Callahan, who died Monday night at his home in Atlanta, was
awarded the National Medal of the Arts in 1997, one of the highest
honors for an artist. An exhibit of his work opened at the National
Gallery of Art in 1994 and toured nationally.
``He took the medium of photography and through his passion and
his discipline he expanded the boundaries of what we think
photography is,'' said Tom Southall, photography curator at
Atlanta's High Museum of Art.
Unlike his mentor Ansel Adams, who is known for his black and
white photographs of mountainous and snowy landscapes, Callahan
concentrated on the everyday. His subjects ranged from the cities
where he lived to his family.
Among celebrated works in his national exhibit were studies of
trees in the snow, crowded streets in Detroit, color work from his
travels during the late '70s and 80's and shots of his wife
Eleanor.
Callahan, who was born in Detroit, started taking pictures in
1938 after he bought his first camera and did not stop until about
1995 after suffering a stroke.
Callahan was one of the first photographers to experiment with
color in the 1940s and 1950s, Southall said. But he said Callahan
did not exhibit this work because color print technology at that
point ``was not up to the intensity of his vision.''
Callahan also taught at Chicago's Institute of Design and
established the photography department at the Rhode Island School
of Design. He moved to Atlanta in 1983 to be closer to his
daughter.
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----
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles,Ca.
dickburk@ix.netcom.com
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