CALLAHAN HARRY (1912 1999) Chicago

Sale 2199 - Lot 362

Price Realized: $ 16,800

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 20,000

CALLAHAN, HARRY (1912-1999)
"Chicago." Silver print, 7 1/2x9 1/2 inches (19.1x24.1 cm.), with Callahan's signature, in pencil, on recto. 1950; printed 1970s

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

Harry Callahan (1967), 65 and back cover.
Harry Callahan (1996), 73.
Harry Callahan: The Photographer at Work, 73.
Harry Callahan (2000), 71.

Callahan's photography ushers the viewer into an intimate world, one that is quiet and unassuming. This landscape displays a seamless elegance through his adept use of compositional elements such as geometric line as well as cropping, repetition, contrast of light and shadow, graphic silhouettes and multiple exposures.

A self-taught photographer, Callahan did all of his own darkroom work including processing negatives and making photographic prints. Unlike his teacher, Ansel Adams, he did not consider himself a master of the darkroom and often claimed to have little knowledge of chemical formulas, failing to make many technical notes that other photographers would refer to when reprinting a particular image. Despite this, his photographs demonstrate masterful technical skills and a refined sensitivity.

The iconic "Chicago" marries his tender Midwestern sensibility with a recognition of crafting the print. The pure black, delicate lace-like appendages of the trees, set against the soft gray environment, all grounded by the crisp white of the snow, evoke the solitude and subliminal beauty of an average winter day that could not be dramatically translated as convincingly by many other photographers.