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Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1966, ink and gouache on paper, 29-1/2" × 43-1/4" (74.9 cm × 109.9 cm) © 2020 Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; Harry Callahan, Kleenex and Penny on Opal Glass, c. 1952, vintage gelatin silver print mounted to board, 3-3/4" × 4-5/8" (9.5 cm × 11.7 cm), image and paper, 14-3/8" × 11" (36.5 cm × 27.9 cm), mount © The Estate of Harry Callahan

Calder, Callahan, and the Intensified Image

Despite mastering different mediums while operating in distinct artistic milieus, Alexander Calder and Harry Callahan shared a sensitivity to the fundamentals of art—form, color, and line, among others—that led to their invention of uniquely modern visual idioms.

In his statements on photography, Callahan repeatedly expressed a desire “to see freshly and feel intensely.” “I’m interested in revealing the subject in a new way, to intensify it,” he explained, elaborating elsewhere, “The difference between the casual impression and the intensified image is about as great as that separating the average business letter from a poem.” In linking his artistic pursuit of intensity to a modernist, lyrical distillation, Callahan was not alone. Calder, too, observed that in art “the elimination of other things which are not essential will make for a stronger result.” Similarly to Callahan, Calder believed that “an abstraction, sculpted or painted,” represented “an intensely exciting arrangement of planes, spheres, nuclei without meaning.” He later concluded, “To most people who look at a mobile, it’s no more than a series of flat objects that move. To a few, though, it may be poetry.” ​

Organized into three subsections drawn from Callahan’s words, this online exhibition explores the poiesis or means by which both artists achieved an “intensified image” across different mediums, pushing modern art toward radically new horizons. ​

Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1956, oil on canvas, 35" × 51-1/4" (88.9 cm × 130.2 cm) framed, 37-1/8" × 53-3/16" x 2-3/8" (94.3 cm × 135.1 cm)
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Interior of Calder’s house in Saché, 1976, Photograph by Pedro Guerrero © The Estate of Pedro E. Guerrero

Compositions “Filled with Conflict and Choices”​​

Whether exploring in-camera multiple exposures or unorthodox materials such as tissue, Callahan consistently mined new photographic techniques. By reshooting on sheet film, for example, he opened his work to chance, creating dynamic and gossamer superimpositions with an almost surrealistic quality. A germane experimental will motivated Calder to alternate between his sculptural practice and two-dimensional mediums. Whereas his airy mobiles move in subtle ways, energy reaches a feverish pitch in his densely packed oil paintings, where vividly colored shapes jostle for dominance. This coupling of what Callahan terms “conflict and choices,” or risk-taking and calculation, propelled the oeuvres of both artists, yielding daring yet sophisticated compositions. 

Harry Callahan, Eleanor, Chicago, 1953, vintage gelatin silver print mounted to board, 3-5/8" × 4-5/8" (9.2 cm × 11.7 cm), image and paper 8" × 10" (20.3 cm × 25.4 cm), mount
Alexander Calder, The Yellow Disc, 1958, oil on canvas, 35" × 48" (88.9 cm × 121.9 cm)
Alexander Calder, White Counterbalance, 1948, sheet metal, wire, and paint, 10-1/2" x 10" x 3" (26.7 cm x 25.4 cm x 7.6 cm)

“Objects behind other objects should not be lost to view but should be shown through the others by making the latter transparent. The wire sculpture accomplishes this in a most decided manner.”

Alexander Calder​

Harry Callahan, Eleanor, Chicago, c. 1952, gelatin silver print, 3-5/8" × 4-3/4" (9.2 cm × 12.1 cm), image, 5" × 8" (12.7 cm × 20.3 cm), paper, print made 1970s

“I’m trying to answer the unexpected. When I continued on that basis . . . [my art] drifted into something else. By working at it . . . by doing it, that’s the only way you discover. And that’s the only way for me.”

Harry Callahan

Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1966, ink and gouache on paper, 29-1/2" × 43-1/4" (74.9 cm × 109.9 cm),framed, 31-3/4" (80.6 cm) x 44-13/16" (113.8 cm) x 2-3/16" (5.6 cm)
Harry Callahan, Kleenex and Penny on Opal Glass, c. 1952, vintage gelatin silver print mounted to board, 3-3/4" × 4-5/8" (9.5 cm × 11.7 cm), image and paper 14-3/8" × 11" (36.5 cm × 27.9 cm), mount

To me the most important thing in composition is disparity.

Alexander Calder​
Alexander Calder, Lines of Flow, 1947, oil on canvas, 30" x 40" (76.2 cm x 101.6 cm)

“Going Abstract” with Color

By applying color to his mobiles and stabiles, Calder further dissolved the boundary between sculpture and painting, which the pronounced linearity of his “drawings in space” had already initiated. In his painted works, color often plays a dominant role by, for example, gaining sculptural density as saturated blocks or overtaking the entirety of the picture plane. Though Calder used secondary colors, such as pink and orange, his predilection for an unnaturalistic and reductive palette points to his dialogue with eminent abstract painters in his entourage, notably Piet Mondrian and Fernand Léger. Nonfigurative painting similarly informed Callahan, who felt that color photographs could easily look “goofy” when straightforwardly representational. Reminiscent of Neoplasticism and the New York School, his trailblazing color photography structures and balances its chromatic expanses through an almost architectonic understanding of geometry and line, indicative of the additional influence of architect Mies van der Rohe.

Providence by Harry Callahan

Harry Callahan, Providence, 1971, dye transfer print, 11-1/4" × 10-7/8" (28.6 cm × 27.6 cm), image 15-1/4" × 13-1/2" (38.7 cm × 34.3 cm), paper

I want things to be differentiated. Black and white are first—then red is next . . . It's really just for differentiation, but I love red so much that I almost want to paint everything red.

Alexander Calder​
Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1972, ink and gouache on paper, 29-1/2" x 43-1/8" (74.9 cm x 109.5 cm), framed, 31-1/2" (80 cm) x 45-1/4" (114.9 cm) x 1-3/4" (4.4 cm)
Harry Callahan, New York, 1974, vintage gelatin silver print, 10" × 9-7/8" (25.4 cm × 25.1 cm), image 12" × 11" (30.5 cm × 27.9 cm), paper
Harry Callahan, Kansas City, 1981, dye transfer print, 9-1/2" × 14-3/8" (24.1 cm × 36.5 cm), image, 20" × 23-3/4" (50.8 cm × 60.3 cm), paper, Edition of 12 + 5 APs, print made 1970s
Harry Callahan, Sunlight on Water, 1943, vintage gelatin silver print, 3-1/4" × 4-1/2" (8.3 cm × 11.4 cm), image 4" × 5" (10.2 cm × 12.7 cm), paper

Line on “the Edge of Nothingness”

A spare beauty characterizes the work of Callahan and Calder, especially in terms of line. By overexposing his photographs or playing with shutter speed, Callahan skillfully captured the evanescent and unnoticed—from humble weeds in the snow to ethereal whorls of light refracted in pools of water—thereby pushing his chosen medium, as well as perception itself, to its limits. “I think nearly every artist continually wants to reach the edge of nothingness—the point where you can’t go any further,” he mused. With similar ingenuity, Calder harnessed the optical and physical lightness of wire to devise a type of sculpture open to space and movement, thus breaking with a longstanding sculptural tradition largely limited to carving and modeling static volumes. Through their swift brushstrokes of varying thickness, his gouaches also reveal his sensitivity to the delicate vitality of the natural world that, as with Callahan, resonated with his work. ​

Alexander Calder, Untitled (Cartoon for Centre Square, Philadelphia Banner), 1975, gouache and ink on paper, 43-1/8" × 14-3/4" (109.5 cm × 37.5 cm), framed, 53-1/8" (134.9 cm) x 24-5/8" (62.5 cm) x 7/8" (2.2 cm)
Harry Callahan, Weed Against Sky, Detroit, 1948, gelatin silver print, 7" × 6-7/8" (17.8 cm × 17.5 cm), image 10" × 8" (25.4 cm × 20.3 cm), paper
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Harry Callahan © Rhode Island School of Design Archives

“I like the simple things. I don't know why. I'm that way. I came from a simple place.”

Harry Callahan​

Alexander Calder, Untitled, 1969, sheet metal, wire, and paint, 79" x 61" (200.7 cm x 154.9 cm)