This major retrospective exhibition, organized by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and touring nationally, examines the career of Harry Callahan, one of America¹s most important and influential photographers. It traces Callahan¹s work from his earliest photographs made during World War II to his innovative images made in Chicago in the late 1940s and 1950s to his accomplished color studies of the last 20 years.

Callahan is particularly important to Chicago¹s art community because in the 1950s he headed the department of photography at Chicago¹s Institute of Design, and under his leadership Aaron Siskind joined the faculty. Together they brought the school renown as a center for photographic innovation. Among the 115 color and black-and-white photographs on view in the show are many images that have never before been exhibited. The exhibition is accompanied by a 200-page, fully illustrated catalogue and is sponsored by a generous grant from Kemper Funds.