Photographer of the Week: Harry Callahan
I returned to him after reading an obituary about his muse (and wife of 63 years), Eleanor Knapp, who died at the end of February, at the age of 95. She is the subject of his most iconic works. Their love affair was akin to that of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keefe:
She met Harry Callahan on a blind date in 1933 when both worked for Chrysler in Detroit. She was a 17-year-old secretary, and he was a 21-year-old clerk in the parts department. They married three years later after he dropped out of college, mainly because he had missed being with her. Although he began to photograph earnestly in 1938, he often credited a 1941 lecture he attended by Ansel Adams with having “freed” him to pursue a career as an artist.
With no money between them to speak of, it was economical for the frugal Mr. Callahan to feature his wife in his pictures.
Sigh! A dream with which to build a weekend…
