Women Lost in Thought is the first exhibition in 20 years devoted exclusively to the Harry Callahan photographs.

This series of tight headshots, photographed surreptitiously with a long lens on the streets of Chicago in 1950, stands as a landmark in the context of street and conceptual photography. In relation to Callahan’s own work, the pictures provide a case study in the way concept and craft interrelate.

Born in 1912 in Detroit, Mich., Callahan traced his interest in photography to a 1941 lecture given by Ansel Adams. From being a member of the Chrysler Camera Club, Callahan went on to become one of the most respected, prolific, and original masters of American photography. He worked mostly in series, the most famous of which are abstractions of nature and portraits of his wife Eleanor, but his curiosity led him down many experimental paths.

Women Lost in Thought combines Callahan’s exploration of the human condition with the highly rigid conceptual framework of photographing people in repetitive tight close-up, unaware of being observed, and isolated against an unfocused dark background. Influenced by Walker Evans’ Subway series of 1938-1941 and certainly referenced by P.L. DiCorcia in his recent Heads work, Callahan’s photographs deal with the capability of photography to explore the human condition from an unobserved viewpoint.

Callahan’s work was the subject of a retrospective at the MoMA in 1976 and at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in 1996. In 1977 he was selected to represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale, the first photographer to be so honored, and in 1996 Callahan received the National Medal of Arts. Harry Callahan died in 1999.