Harry Callahan took up photography as a hobby in 1938. He had studied engineering at Michigan State University and worked for Chrysler. Callahan cited a visit by Ansel Adams to his local camera club in 1941 as the catalyst for his decision to pursue photography more seriously.
In 1946, shortly after meeting László Moholy-Nagy, he was asked to join the faculty of the New Bauhaus (later known as the Institute of Design) in Chicago, where he later became chairman of the photography department. He left Chicago in 1961 to head the photography department at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he remained until 1973.
Callahan has won many awards for his photography, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972 and the Photographer and Educator Award from the Society for Photographic Education in 1976. Among the major exhibitions of his work were Photographs of Harry Callahan and Robert Frank (1962), one of the last shows curated by Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art, and retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art (1976) and at the National Gallery in Washington, DC (1996).
Callahan was widely respected in the photography community for his open mind and experimental attitude, qualities reinforced by his association with Moholy-Nagy and the principles of Bauhaus design.