Harry Callahan
Telephone Wires, Detroit

Telephone Wires, Detroit

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

Telephone Wires, Detroit
Telephone Wires, Detroit
ArtistAmerican, 1912–1999
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Telephone Wires, Detroit
Date1945
Place depictedUnited States
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 4 3/4 × 4 3/4 in. (12.1 × 12.1 cm)
Sheet: 9 7/8 × 8 in. (25.1 × 20.3 cm)
Credit LineThe Target Collection of American Photography, museum purchase funded by Target Stores
Object number76.264
Not on view

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

In this photograph, Harry
Callahan transforms industrial telephone lines into a lyrical dance of
delicate, swinging lines. The abstraction seen in Callahan’s work has its roots
in early 20th-century experimental work by photographers of the Bauhaus in
Germany. By mid-century, this approach gained momentum on an international scale
through a movement called
subjective
photography
that sought to explore the power of images to communicate an
expressive view of reality.




Provenance[The Cronin Gallery, Houston]; purchased by MFAH, 1976.
Exhibition HistoryExhibited: "Out of the Ordinary", MFAH, Lower Brown Corridor, December 13, 2004 - March 14, 2005

Exhibited "Target Collection of American Photography: A Century in Pictures",
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston December 3 - February 25, 2007
Austin Museum of Art May 19 - August 12, 2007
Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi June 5 - August 24, 2008

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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