Harry Callahan is regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-war photography, yet his work is little known in the UK. Curator Simon Baker walks us through the Tate Modern exhibition.
Callahan disregarded the limits of conventional landscapes to give equal focus to both broad perspectives and individual details. He described the three themes of his work as ‘Nature, Buildings and People’ – but his most photographed subject was one person in particular; his wife Eleanor, whom he met in 1933. Due to his crippling shyness, she would be the only woman he would ever photograph for his series of nudes.
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