Harry Callahan

The Hallmark Photographic Collection began in 1964 with the purchase of 141 photographs by Harry Callahan (1912-1999).

It is fitting then, that he is the subject of the first installation in the Hallmark Cards Inc. Galleries dedicated to photography in the Nelson-Atkins’s new Bloch Building.

Callahan is legendary for having (seemingly) explored all facets of camera vision: he worked with both 35mm and 8 x10-inch cameras, both black-and-white and color film, and made images of both Zen-like simplicity and dense complexity. He devoted himself to the classic themes of nature, the city, his own family, and photographic abstraction. As a whole, Callahan’s work provides a perfect starting point for any larger consideration of how the camera sees and the expressive potentials of the “straight” photographic print.