The images made by Harry Callahan in Aix-en-Provence makes up one of the rare cases where a master of American street photography in the 1950s is confronted with the decor of a small European village with its narrow streets and modest boutiques, keeping a certain distance from the inhabitants of the city. From the French Archives, he was able to create a cold and distanced poetry without any nostalgia. As for the nature studies, some were taken in the garden of the house where he was staying on the way to Sainte-Victoire Mountain, dear to Cézanne.
Harry lived to make photographs. Nobody took greater delight in seeing what things looked like when photographed than Harry Callahan. He would use his particular vision to transform simple things into really compelling photographs that intensified the subject matter. He had three areas he photographed: His wife Eleanor and daughter Barbara, nature, and the city—his three loves. What made Harry really special was that he could stick to those few subjects and create an enormous body of work. He worked every day.
