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Installation view: Photographs by Harry Callahan and Robert Frank, MOMA, 1962 with one of this series
Installation view: Photographs by Harry Callahan and Robert Frank, MOMA, 1962 with one of this series
Harry Callahan 1912-1999
Chicago, 1954 (Unique Set of 7), 1954
Deaccessioned by Art Institute of Chicago, U.S.A.
Vintage Gelatin Silver Prints from a set of 7.
22.9 x 34.3 cms
9 x 13 1/2 ins
9 x 13 1/2 ins
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Each work 22.9 x 34.3 cms. A group of seven prints. The only known prints. Price for the set. The seven pictures of pigeons in various states of flight illustrate...
Each work 22.9 x 34.3 cms.
A group of seven prints. The only known prints. Price for the set.
The seven pictures of pigeons in various states of flight illustrate Harry Callahan's photography as an intuitive process based on spontaneous action, akin to contemporaneous action painting-but with a camera. "I can't say what makes a picture. I can't say. It's mysterious," Callahan remarked late in his life. "You open the shutter and let the world in."
These pictures were donated to the Art Institute by Dr. Edith Farnsworth, best known for her famous modernist home (the Farnsworth House, Plano, IL, 1945-1951) designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who taught at Illinois Institute of Technology, home to Callahan's school, the Institute of Design. Today these images are little known, but in 1962 Callahan included one of them in an exhibition he had with Robert Frank at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Callahan and Frank, MOMA, 1962.
Apparently prosaic images when read individually, as a group they can be interpreted as a journey from dark to light and from the earth to the sky that carries religious connotations; a vision of heavenly assent reinforced by the outstretched wings of the pigeon or dove.
A group of seven prints. The only known prints. Price for the set.
The seven pictures of pigeons in various states of flight illustrate Harry Callahan's photography as an intuitive process based on spontaneous action, akin to contemporaneous action painting-but with a camera. "I can't say what makes a picture. I can't say. It's mysterious," Callahan remarked late in his life. "You open the shutter and let the world in."
These pictures were donated to the Art Institute by Dr. Edith Farnsworth, best known for her famous modernist home (the Farnsworth House, Plano, IL, 1945-1951) designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who taught at Illinois Institute of Technology, home to Callahan's school, the Institute of Design. Today these images are little known, but in 1962 Callahan included one of them in an exhibition he had with Robert Frank at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Callahan and Frank, MOMA, 1962.
Apparently prosaic images when read individually, as a group they can be interpreted as a journey from dark to light and from the earth to the sky that carries religious connotations; a vision of heavenly assent reinforced by the outstretched wings of the pigeon or dove.
Provenance
Dr. Edith Farnsworth, best known for commissioning her famous modernist home (the Farnsworth House, Plano, IL, 1945-1951) from Ludwig Mies van der RoheDonated by her to the Art Institute of Chicago, deaccessioned by them in 2014.