Harry Callahan
[Camera Movement]

[Camera Movement]

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

[Camera Movement]
[Camera Movement]
ArtistAmerican, 1912–1999
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • [Camera Movement]
Date1946
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 4 5/8 × 4 9/16 in. (11.7 × 11.6 cm)
Sheet: 4 5/8 × 4 9/16 in. (11.7 × 11.6 cm)
Mount: 11 5/8 × 10 1/2 in. (29.5 × 26.7 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Morris Weiner
Object number2016.5
Not on view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

Harry Callahan is known for finding abstraction in nature, making photographs with a balance of form and content that results in a classical simplicity and order. Throughout his life, he took an intuitive, experimental approach to the mechanics and materials of photography, exploiting the inherent properties of the camera and its ability to render detail, texture, and tone with objective precision.

Early in his career, Callahan made a number of photographic explorations of time and motion, breaking from reality by capturing forms that never existed in a single moment of time, but were the constructed result of the camera’s mechanical vision of movement over time. In 1946 he made a number of Camera Movements, experimenting with the direct capture of light in an extended exposure. Standing in a darkened room, Callahan moved his camera with the shutter open while photographing a flashlight and literally drawing with light. The light was small and condensed, allowing him a great degree of control in the gesture to create elegant, calligraphic lines that strike a balance between spontaneity and restraint.
ProvenanceThe artist; [750 Studio Gallery, Chicago, 1947]; […]; [L. Parker Stephenson Photographs, New York, 2015]; purchased by MFAH, 2016.
Exhibition HistoryExperimental Photography 1945-1950s, L. Parker Stevenson Photographs Gallery, New York, September 18 - November 28, 2015.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Signed in black ink on verso upper left: Harry M Callahan / 1946 on period paper mount.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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