Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan
Minor White, Jan Davis, vicinity of Pescadero, California, June 30 (detail), 1951. The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White. © Trustees of Princeton University. Photo: Allen Chen | Aaron Siskind, Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 37 (detail), 1953. Princeton University Art Museum. Gift of Robert A. Wayne, Class of 1960. © Aaron Siskind/Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Molly Gibbons | Harry Callahan, Eleanor, Chicago (detail), 1952. Princeton University Art Museum. Gift of Jane Teller. © The Estate of Harry Callahan, Courtesy Pace Gallery. Photo: Jeffrey Evans
Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton, NJ 08544-1018USA
Photography as a Way of Life examines the careers of Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan—influential photographers, teachers, and thinkers in the United States in the mid-twentieth century—and traces their impact on the field of photography. Training and inspiring makers through courses, workshops, exhibitions, magazines, and photobooks, these artists built a devoted audience for their work while shaping the aspirations of their era.
Amid exploding markets for Kodak’s snapshots and Magnum’s decisive moments, White, Siskind, and Callahan shared inclinations toward abstraction and toward deeply personal photographs. Seeking to carve out a new role and status for art photography, just as a new crop of photography programs were emerging within higher education, they established themselves as icons among the first generation of college-level photography teachers.
Drawing on the rich photography holdings of the Princeton University Art Museum and its Minor White Archive, this exhibition brings together iconic and previously unpublished color and black-and-white prints, rarely seen slides, and an array of published and archival materials that illuminate a vision of making a living and shaping a life through photography.
Curated by
associate professor of art history in the School of Art and Design
,Eastern Michigan University
Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan is made possible by leadership support from Jim McKinney and the late Valerie McKinney with generous support from Anne Robinson Woods and Sandy and Robin Stuart.
Additional support is provided by Black Dog Private Foundation; the Curtis W. McGraw Foundation; the Melanie and John Clarke Exhibition Fund; Princeton University’s Department of Art & Archaeology, Effron Center for the Study of America, and Humanities Council; and Kathryn Richardson and family.
The accompanying publication is generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fund; the Barr Ferree Foundation Fund for Publications, Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University; Furthermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund; and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.
Exhibitions at the Princeton University Art Museum are made possible by contributors to the Director’s Exhibition Fund: Allen R. Adler and Frances Beatty Adler, Len and Laura Berlik, John L. Cecil and Celia A. Felsher, Jeannie and Jitender Chopra, John and Susan Diekman, Donald and Martine E. Elefson, William S. Fisher and Sakurako D. Fisher, Stacey Roth Goergen and Robert Goergen, Preston H. Haskell III, Robert and Lynn Johnston, Gene and Sueyun Locks, David and Catherine Loevner, Shelly and Tony Malkin, Edward E. Matthews, Dean and Jill Mitchell, Christopher E. Olofson, Anne C. Sherrerd, Preeti and Sanjay Swani, and Theodora D. and William H. Walton III.
With additional support from: Tena and Chris Achen, Sarah Lee Elson, Christopher C. Forbes and Astrid Forbes, Alice Cooney Frelinghuysen, Paul G. Haaga Jr. and Heather Sturt Haaga, Padmaja Kumari Parmar and Kush M. Parmar, Mark W. Stevens and Annalyn Martha Swan, Judy and Ed Stier, and Jonathan Lee Walton.
