Exhibition dates: 19th April – 7th September, 2026
Curator: Brendan Fay
Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Hilltop view of red van and camera on tripod
1964
35 mm slide
© Trustees of Princeton University. Courtesy the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
It’s such a pity when a gallery or museum spends an inordinate amount of time, energy and money to put on an exhibition and then doesn’t do all it can to promote the exhibition by providing media and installation photographs.
As I observed to my friend Colin Vickery on the Art Blart Facebook page, I can’t really comment on the exhibition as there were so few media images and one installation photo that I really don’t have much to go on. I had to scrounge around just to get enough to make up this post 
Of course each of the photographers I admire in their own right but together … that would be incredible to see. One can only imagine the energy bouncing between the images of three masters of photography.
Suffice to say I have ordered the catalogue even though it’s $110 in Australia on Amazon.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Princeton University Art Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“Soon, the grand sweep of the exhibition becomes clear as it maps a shared strategy among this trio in the formation of a network of institutions, criticism, publishing, museum engagement, and, perhaps most crucially, an educational infrastructure that would embed photography as an academic and cultural participant. As a premise, it is both startling and self-evident and vividly demonstrates the coordination of parts among the Museum of Modern Art, Aperture, the George Eastman Museum, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), and the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago. Indeed, Photography as a Way of Life is as much about the careers of each photographer and their advancement as they chaperoned the medium. The exhibition does not seem a matter of cunning and opportunism, as it might be perceived, but of passion and commitment. …
To its credit, the exhibition includes a second chapter in the chronicle. By 1970, a new generation of photographers who had studied at RISD, Rochester Institute of Technology and the newly formed Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, in the spirit of the times, departed from the received wisdom of the photograph as a formalist device. From the tutelage of Callahan and Siskind, especially, came an assertion of the photograph not as an object of wistful contemplation but one of cultural rhetoric. It was not a delicate mimetic device but a public construction, a surface and a process. Graduates of this school of thought and practice became a pedagogical diaspora that propagated photographic thinking as we know it today.”
Stephen Frailey. “Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan,” on The Brooklyn Rail website July/August 2026 [Online] Cited 12/08/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor
c. 1947
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Harry Callahan and courtesy Pace Gallery
Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Grasses in Snow
Detroit, 1943
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Harry Callahan and courtesy Pace Gallery
Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor, Chicago
1952
Gelatin silver print
© The Estate of Harry Callahan. Courtesy Pace Gallery
Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Devil’s Slide, San Mateo County, California, October 12, 1947
1947
Gelatin silver print
© Trustees of Princeton University
Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Jan Davis, vicinity of Pescadero, California, June 30 1951
1951
Gelatin silver print
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University
Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991)
Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation 37
1953
Gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum
Gift of Robert A. Wayne, Class of 1960
© Aaron Siskind/Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
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 colour 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.
Text from the Princeton University Art Museum website
Installation view of the exhibition Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan at the Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, 2026
Photo: Joseph Hu
“In bringing their works together in dialogue, [Brendan] Fay illustrates how White, Siskind, Callahan – each in his own way and as a spiritual collective – not only elevated photography into a way of making a comfortable living, but as a manifesto for how to be in the world. As fellow travelers, they would shape their medium into a discipline defined by an intentional and introspective way of seeing, that is, one that has a worldview, a morality. …
Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan shared a propensity for abstraction, which set their vision apart from the post–World War II years when documentary photography, Kodak’s snapshots, and Magnum’s “decisive moments” dominated the market. They were steadfast in their artistic right to ambiguity and improvisation. They rejected reproducibility, resisted interpretation. They carried on the Romantic tradition of superimposing one’s emotional landscape onto natural terrain. They saw the ethereal in urban settings. They associated themselves with the Beat poets and Abstract Expressionists. White, in particular, carved out a space for so-called creative photography as the founding editor of this magazine and championed the works of Callahan and Siskind in its pages. (White co-founded Aperture in 1952 and was one of the magazine’s longtime editors. His archives are held by the Princeton University Art Museum.)”
Michael Londres. “How Three Friends Turned Photography into a Way of Life,” on the Aperture website, July 31, 2026 [Online] Cited 13/08/2026
Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Layout mock-up for the first issue of Aperture
1952
Graphite drawings, text, and paper
Museum purchase, Minor White Archive Fund
© Trustees of Princeton University
Photo: Joseph Hu
Aaron Siskind (American, 1903-1991)
Martha’s Vineyard IIIB
1954
Gelatin silver print
© the artist and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The Princeton University Art Museum announces Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan, an exhibition exploring the intertwined careers of three of the most influential photographers and teachers in mid-twentieth-century America. On view in Princeton from April 19 through September 7, 2026, and then traveling, the exhibition draws on the rich photography holdings of the Princeton University Art Museum and its Minor White Archive to bring together iconic and previously unpublished colour 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.
“Photography as a Way of Life highlights a pivotal historical moment when photography emerged as a serious academic discipline and a viable artistic profession, and thus as a way of being and living,” said James Steward, Nancy A. Nasher-David J. Haemisegger, Class of 1976, Director of the Princeton University Art Museum. “White, Siskind, and Callahan did more than make extraordinary photographs: They built institutions, communities, and ideas that continue to shape how photography is taught and valued today.”
Tracing the decades after World War II, Photography as a Way of Life explores how Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan redefined photography as both an artistic practice and a professional vocation. Coming to the medium from distinct backgrounds and visual traditions, these three artists converged around shared commitments to abstraction, deeply personal expression, and the belief that photography could sustain a life’s work.
The exhibition takes its title from a recurring phrase in Minor White’s diaries and letters, in which he described photography as a “way of life.” For White, the phrase encompassed artistic ambition, pedagogy, and personal growth – a vision he advanced as a founding editor of Aperture, the influential photography magazine launched in 1952. Siskind and Callahan were central figures in White’s vision for the field, with their work prominently featured in Aperture alongside broader discussions of photographic education and postwar art photography.
“Princeton University holds a central place in the academic study of photography, with a proud legacy of stewardship and landmark scholarly exhibitions,” said Brendan Fay, exhibition curator. “The Minor White Archive is one of the cornerstones of that legacy, and it’s an honour to present an exhibition that builds on that strength during the new Museum’s inaugural year.”
From the 1940s through the 1970s, amid booming markets for Kodak snapshots and photojournalism, photography began to take root within higher education. White, Siskind, and Callahan were among the first generation of college-level photography teachers, developing models of photographic education during the GI Bill era that quickly spread across colleges and universities in the United States. While achieving critical success through books, exhibitions, and museum acquisitions, these artists also helped catalyze the creation of academic programs, publishing ventures, and professional societies that defined the postwar photographic landscape.
Highlights of the exhibition include a reconstruction of White’s Slow Dance, a projected sequence of color slides performed for live audiences in the late 1960s and 1970s, as well as materials from magazines and journals ranging from Popular Photography and Apertureto poetry publications and The Black Photographers Annual. The exhibition also traces the expansive networks shaped by these photographers, featuring works by more than forty additional artists, from Alfred Stieglitz and Dorothea Lange to Anthony Barboza and Donna-Lee Phillips.
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue copublished by the Museum and Princeton University Press. While on view in Princeton, the exhibition will inspire a number of public programs, including a two-day symposium beginning April 30, a film series, and a talk by curator Brendan Fay on April 18. Attendees to the curatorial talk will have the opportunity to preview the exhibition alongside Museum members prior to the exhibition’s public opening the following day. Visit the exhibition website for a full list of related programming.
Photography as a Way of Life is curated by Brendan Fay, associate professor of art history in the School of Art & Design at Eastern Michigan University and is organized and presented by the Princeton University Art Museum. Following its debut at Princeton, the exhibition will travel through 2028, with presentations at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts; and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri.
Exhibition credits
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; the Peter C. Bunnell Photography Fund; Princeton University’s Department of Art & Archaeology, Effron Center for the Study of America, and Humanities Council; Kathryn Richardson and family; and contributors to the Director’s Exhibition Fund.
The accompanying publication is made possible in part 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.
Press release from Princeton University Art Museum
Ming Smith (American, b. 1951)
Oopdeedoo, Brooklyn, NY, from the series Coney Island
1976
Gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
© Ming Smith
Photo: Emile Askey
Donna-Lee Phillips (American, b. 1941)
Fragments from a Visual Journal
1977
Gelatin silver print
Black Dog Collection
© Hal Fischer
Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan carved out a new role for photographers and their art in the decades after World War Two. Photography as a Way of Life traces how these influential teachers and theorists reimagined the medium as a livelihood and a life’s work.
Together with growing markets for snapshots and photojournalism, the postwar years saw the emergence of photography as an established field of study in higher education. In this beautifully produced book, Brendan Fay takes readers from the late 1940s through the 1970s to explore how White, Siskind, and Callahan transformed the ways photography was taught, shown, and understood. Inclined toward abstraction and personally expressive images, they modeled a commitment to art in the face of commercial and professional pressures. In classrooms and private workshops and through exhibitions, photobooks, and magazines-including Aperture, with White as its founding editor-they offered training and inspiration while building a devoted audience for their pictures.
Blending stunning illustrations with rare archival material published here for the first time, Photography as a Way of Lifebrings together the work of three boldly inventive artists and educators who opened new possibilities for photography in postwar America and exemplified a vision of learning and living through photography.
Published in association with the Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton University Art Museum
Princeton, NJ 08544-1018 USA
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