Kenneth Callahan (1905–1986) was an American painter and muralist who served as a catalyst for Northwest artists in the mid-20th century through his own painting, his work as assistant director and curator at the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in ...

, and his writings about contemporary art. Born in Eastern

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

and largely self-taught as an artist, Callahan was committed to an art that went beyond the merely illustrative. He enrolled at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

in 1924 but did not stay long. He traveled widely, absorbing influences from the different countries and cultures he experienced. His talent was recognized early; his work was included in the first Whitney Biennial exhibition in 1933 and he went on to a distinguished painting career. Callahan is identified as one of the Northwest Mystics – along with Guy Anderson, Morris Graves, and

Mark Tobey Mark George Tobey (December 11, 1890 – April 24, 1976) was an American painter. His densely structured compositions, inspired by Asian calligraphy, resemble Abstract expressionism, although the motives for his compositions differ philosop ...

, who shared a muted palette and strong interest in Asian aesthetics.

Early life

Kenneth Callahan was born in

Spokane Spokane ( ) is the most populous city in eastern Washington and the county seat of Spokane County, Washington, United States. It lies along the Spokane River, adjacent to the Selkirk Mountains, and west of the Rocky Mountain foothills, south ...

, Washington, on October 30, 1905, the fifth of seven children of John and Martha Ann Cross Callahan. He spent his growing years in the small town of Glasgow, Montana. Encouraged by his mother, he began painting watercolors at age seven.Iridescent Light: The Emergence of Northwest Art, by Deloris Tarzan Ament; University of Washington Press, 2002 In 1918 he moved with his family to

Raymond, Washington Raymond is a city in Pacific County, Washington, United States. The population was 2,882 at the 2010 census. The 2020 census showed the population of 3,081, an increase of 6.4%. The town's economy has traditionally been based on logging and f ...

, then two years later to Seattle, where he took art classes at Broadway High School. Both his parents died while he was still a teenager. Callahan enrolled in the University of Washington, but left after two months. Moving to San Francisco, he did illustrations for a children's magazine, and, while living in low-rent apartments with other artists, had his first exposure to contemporary abstract art. At that time he was painting in a realist style inspired by Thomas Hart Benton and the artists of the

Ashcan School The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, was an artistic movement in the United States during the late 19th-early 20th century that produced works portraying scenes of daily life in New York, often in the city's poorer neighborhoods. T ...

, but he was deeply impressed by the originality of

Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

, Kandinsky, and Feininger. He later told journalist Deloris Tarzan Ament, "It was the first time it occurred to me that there could be good art that I didn't like." In 1926 Callahan had his first one-man show at San Francisco's Schwabacher-Frey Gallery; the following year he began his world travels as a ship's steward, winding up back in Seattle in 1930.

Career

In 1930 Callahan married Margaret Bundy, who was a co-editor of ''Town Crier'', a literary magazine published in Seattle between 1912 and 1937. The Callahans developed friendships with Dr. Richard Fuller (founder of the Seattle Art Museum), Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, and other progressive-minded artists. Their home became a meeting-place for Seattle's arts community, including prominent Japanese-American artists Kenjiro Nomura and Kamekichi Tokita, and many others. In 1933 - at age 27 - he gained national recognition with the inclusion of some of his paintings in the First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art at the

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is a Modern art, modern and Contemporary art, contemporary American art museum located in the Meatpacking District, Manhattan, Meatpacking District and West Village neighbor ...

, in New York. The same year he began his twenty-year tenure with SAM, when it opened its new building in Seattle's Volunteer Park. Over the next two decades he curated exhibitions at SAM, wrote a weekly arts column for ''The Seattle Times'', and took trips to Europe and Latin America; his main focus, however, remained his painting. He had numerous exhibitions, was commissioned to do several murals (including post office murals for the

Section of Painting and Sculpture Section, Sectioning, or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section s ...

Anacortes Anacortes ( ) is a city in Skagit County, Washington, United States. The name "Anacortes" is an adaptation of the name of Anne Curtis Bowman, who was the wife of early Fidalgo Island settler Amos Bowman.Centralia, Washington and

Rugby, North Dakota Rugby is a city in and the county seat of Pierce County, North Dakota, Pierce County, North Dakota, United States. The population was 2,509 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in North Dakota, 19th largest ...

), and helped form the Group of Twelve, an "independent salon" of Northwest artists. In the late 1930s he and his wife began spending much of their time in the Robe Valley area of the

North Cascades The North Cascades are a section of the Cascade Range of western North America. They span the border between the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia and the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and ...

mountains; during the Second World War he spent summers as a U.S. Forest Service fire lookout in the Cascades. Margaret gave birth to their son Brian Tobey Callahan in 1938. Callahan was a somewhat controversial figure within the arts community, with some artists seeing conflict of interest in his positions as artist, curator, and critic. In 1953 he ceased working at SAM. Later that same year ''Life'' magazine ran an article with large color photos extolling Callahan, Graves, Anderson, and Tobey as the "Mystic Painters of the Pacific Northwest".Callahan never considered himself to be a "mystic" painter. In writings and interviews he explained that he wasn't interested in symbolism; rather, he saw his work as being firmly rooted in nature and art history - as it plainly was through the early part of his career. By the early 1960s, however, his style had become much more complex - and seemingly rife with symbolism. "He liked muscle-bound grandeur," wrote arts journalist Regina Hackett, "but released the figures who displayed it from the confines of gravity. Full of light, many hover on the edge of floating away." Over time, figurative elements - men, horses, trees, insects - disappeared from his work, in favor of pure abstraction, but still, said Callahan, "It is nature, with its unlimited varied form, structure, and color that constitutes the vital living force from which art must basically stem." While Callahan enjoyed his status as a respected artist, the increasingly abstract style of his painting did not lend itself to ready sales. He supplemented his income with occasional teaching jobs at various colleges, and in 1954 applied for and received a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 1961 Margaret died of cancer; two years later his summer home/studio near the

Stillaguamish River The Stillaguamish River is a river in the northwestern region of the U.S. state of Washington. It is mainly composed of two forks, the longer North Fork Stillaguamish () and the South Fork Stillaguamish. The two forks join near Arlington. Fro ...

burned down while he was in Europe, with the loss of many paintings by both himself and friends. He married Beth Inge Gotfredsen in 1964, and they moved to Long Beach, Washington, on the Pacific coast.

Later years

Callahan continued painting in his studio near the shore in Long Beach, but at a more relaxed pace. The Seventies saw two unusual commissioned works: In 1972 he designed costumes and sets for the Seattle Repertory Theatre's production of ''

Macbeth ''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambiti ...

'', and in 1976, the owner of Longacres racetrack asked him to do a series of paintings of horses for an on-site restaurant. Callahan, a lifelong horse lover, enjoyed the assignment immensely. In 1973, the

Henry Art Gallery The Henry Art Gallery ("The Henry") is a contemporary art museum located on the campus of the University of Washington, in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located on the west edge of the university's campus along 15th Avenue N.E. in the Un ...

presented ''Universal Voyages'', the most comprehensive retrospective of Callahan's work ever mounted. In 1975, he was elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Frederick Styles Agate, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, an ...

as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1977. In 1984 Callahan moved back to Seattle and turned his artistic attention to urban life, in contrast with the sea and light studies that dominated his work during two decades at Long Beach. In May, 1986, following a brief illness, he died at his home in Seattle. He was 81.Los Angeles Times, May 13, 1986; 'Abstract Artist Kenneth Callahan Dies in Seattle After Brief Illness'; Associated Press

Legacy

Callahan's works are included in collections at the

Metropolitan Museum The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

, the Guggenheim, and the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York; the Corcoran Gallery, the

Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips (art collector), Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the ...

, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Chicago Art Institute, the

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern art, modern and contemporary art museum and nonprofit organization located in San Francisco, California. SFMOMA was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th-century art ...

, the

, and the Tacoma Art Museum. In 2014, several of his works were included in ''Modernism in the Pacific Northwest: the Mythic and the Mystical'', a major exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum."A fresh look back at ‘Modernism in the Pacific Northwest’ ", by Michael Upchurch, ''the Seattle Times'', June 18, 2014

References

Bibliography

* Conkelton, Sheryl, ''What It Meant to be Modern: Seattle Art at Mid-Century'',

, Seattle 1999 * Conkelton, Sheryl, and Landau, Laura, ''Northwest Mythologies: The Interactions of Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Kenneth Callahan, and Guy Anderson'', Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma WA; University of Washington Press, Seattle and London 2003 * Kingsbury, Martha, ''Art of the Thirties: The Pacific Northwest'', University of Washington Press for Henry Art Gallery, Seattle and London 1972 * Orton, Thomas, and Watkinson, Patricia Grieve, ''Kenneth Callahan'',

Museum of Northwest Art The Museum of Northwest Art (also referred to as MoNA) is an art museum located in La Conner, Washington La Conner is a town in Skagit County, Washington, United States with a population of 965 at the 2020 census. It is included in the ...

, La Conner WA;

University of Washington Press The University of Washington Press is an American academic publishing house. The organization is a division of the University of Washington, based in Seattle. Although the division functions autonomously, it has worked to assist the university' ...

, Seattle and London, 2000

External links

Art Archives
Transcription of Ken Callahan's interview by The Smithsonian

at Laura Russo Gallery

with other artists in Arizona
Kenneth Callahan images and information
at Woodside Braseth Gallery
Art by Kenneth Callahan in the Seattle Public Library's Northwest Art Collection

Kenneth Callahan biography on HistoryLink
{{DEFAULTSORT:Callahan, Kenneth 1905 births 1986 deaths Broadway High School (Seattle) alumni American modern artists Painters from Seattle Pacific Northwest artists Artists from Spokane, Washington Section of Painting and Sculpture artists Northwest School (art) 20th-century American painters American male painters People from Glasgow, Montana People from Raymond, Washington 20th-century American male artists