Harry Callahan
Grasses in Snow, Detroit

Grasses in Snow, Detroit

© Estate of Harry Callahan, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

Grasses in Snow, Detroit
Grasses in Snow, Detroit
ArtistAmerican, 1912–1999
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Grasses in Snow, Detroit
Date1943
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 6 15/16 × 9 7/16 in. (17.6 × 24 cm)
Sheet: 7 15/16 × 9 15/16 in. (20.2 × 25.2 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Morgan Garwood
Object number2014.104
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
DescriptionAlthough self-taught, Harry Callahan was among the most influential post-war American teachers of photography, first at the Institute of Design in Chicago from 1946 to 1961, and then at the Rhode Island School of Design where he established the photography program. Whether photographing landscapes, city scenes and pedestrians, or studies of his wife Eleanor and daughter Barbara, Callahan maintained a simplicity of line, as in the calligraphic blades of grass shown here. He worked in both black-and-white and color, exploring different techniques like multiple and extended exposures, collage, and extreme contrast printing that exemplify the experimental philosophy and formal abstraction of modernist photography.
ProvenanceMorgan Garwood, New York; bequeathed to MFAH, 2014.
Exhibition History“A Critical Eye: Mid-Century American Photographs from the Morgan Garwood Collection,” The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, July 23–November 2, 2014.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
verso top left in pencil "Grasses in snow / Detroit 1943"
top right "EM95"
bottom right below image and verso top right in pencil "Harry Callahan"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

If you have questions about this work of art or the MFAH Online Collection please contact us.

Weeds in Snow, Detroit
Harry Callahan
1943
Gelatin silver print
91.1586
Toadstool and Grasses, Georgetown, Maine
Paul Strand
1928
Gelatin silver print
2002.2374
Telephone Wires, Detroit
Harry Callahan
1945
Gelatin silver print
2002.743
Detroit
Harry Callahan
1941, printed 1977–1987
Gelatin silver print
2021.490
Detroit
Harry Callahan
1943, printed 1977–1987
Gelatin silver print
2021.488
Eleanor, Detroit
Harry Callahan
1941, printed later
Gelatin silver print
91.1297
Telephone Wires, Detroit
Harry Callahan
1945
Gelatin silver print
76.264
Detroit
Harry Callahan
1941
Gelatin silver print
91.1583
cropped recto of sheet
Harry Callahan
1962
Gelatin silver print
2014.108
Hands & Grasses
Mirjam Schwarz
likely 1970s
Gelatin silver prints
2022.337
Wind-Swirled Grasses, Point Lobos
Faurest Davis
1940
Gelatin silver print
2002.867
provided
Geoff Winningham
1999, printed 2000
Gelatin silver print
2015.142