Princeton University Art Museum Publicizes Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan

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PRINCETON, NJ, March 16, 2026– The Princeton University Art Museum proclaims Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan, an exhibition exploring the intertwined careers of three of probably the most influential photographers and lecturers in mid-twentieth-century America. On view in Princeton from April 19 via September 7, 2026, after which touring, the exhibition attracts on the wealthy images holdings of the Princeton University Art Museum and its Minor White Archive to deliver collectively iconic and beforehand unpublished coloration and black-and-white prints, not often seen slides, and an array of printed and archival supplies that illuminate a imaginative and prescient of constructing a dwelling and shaping a life via images.

“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,” stated 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 many years after World War II, Photography as a Way of Life explores how Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan redefined images as each a creative apply and an expert vocation. Coming to the medium from distinct backgrounds and visible traditions, these three artists converged round shared commitments to abstraction, deeply private expression, and the idea that images might maintain a life’s work.

The exhibition takes its title from a recurring phrase in Minor White’s diaries and letters, through which he described images as a “way of life.” For White, the phrase encompassed creative ambition, pedagogy, and private development—a imaginative and prescient he superior as a founding editor of Aperture, the influential images journal launched in 1952. Siskind and Callahan have been central figures in White’s imaginative and prescient for the sector, with their work prominently featured in Aperture alongside broader discussions of photographic schooling and postwar artwork images.

“Princeton University holds a central place in the academic study of photography, with a proud legacy of stewardship and landmark scholarly exhibitions,” stated Brendan Fay, exhibition curator. “The Minor White Archive is one of the cornerstones of that legacy, and it’s an honor to present an exhibition that builds on that strength during the new Museum’s inaugural year.”

From the Forties via the Seventies, amid booming markets for Kodak snapshots and photojournalism, images started to take root inside greater schooling. White, Siskind, and Callahan have been among the many first era of college-level images lecturers, creating fashions of photographic schooling in the course of the GI Bill period that rapidly unfold throughout faculties and universities within the United States. While reaching important success via books, exhibitions, and museum acquisitions, these artists additionally helped catalyze the creation of educational packages, publishing ventures, {and professional} societies that outlined the postwar photographic panorama.

Highlights of the exhibition embrace a reconstruction of White’s Slow Dance, a projected sequence of coloration slides carried out for stay audiences within the late Nineteen Sixties and Seventies, in addition to supplies from magazines and journals starting from Popular Photography and Aperture to poetry publications and The Black Photographers Annual. The exhibition additionally traces the expansive networks formed by these photographers, that includes works by greater than forty further 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 encourage quite a few public packages, together with a two-day symposium starting April 30, a movie sequence, and a chat by curator Brendan Fay on April 18. Attendees to the curatorial discuss can have the chance to preview the exhibition alongside Museum members previous to the exhibition’s public opening the next day. Visit the exhibition web site for a full listing of associated programming.

Photography as a Way of Life is curated by Brendan Fay, affiliate professor of artwork historical past within the School of Art & Design at Eastern Michigan University and is organized and offered by the Princeton University Art Museum. Following its debut at Princeton, the exhibition will journey via 2028, with displays on 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 potential by management help from Jim McKinney and the late Valerie McKinney, with beneficiant help from Anne Robinson Woods and Sandy and Robin Stuart. 

Additional help is supplied 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 household; and contributors to the Director’s Exhibition Fund. 

The accompanying publication is made potential partially 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.

About the Princeton University Art Museum 

With a amassing historical past that extends again to 1755, the Princeton University Art Museum is among the main college artwork museums within the nation, that includes collections which have grown to incorporate greater than 117,000 artistic endeavors starting from historic to up to date artwork and spanning the globe. Committed to advancing Princeton’s instructing and analysis missions, the Art Museum additionally serves as an entry level to the University for guests from world wide. 

The daring and welcoming new Princeton University Art Museum is now open every day on the coronary heart of Princeton’s campus. Admission is free to all. Mosaic, the Museum’s new restaurant, is positioned inside the brand new Museum and is open Thursday via Monday. 

Art@Bainbridge, a gallery undertaking at 158 Nassau Street, is open Friday via Sunday. Admission is free to all. 

Please go to the Museum’s web site for digital entry to the collections, a various portfolio of packages, and particulars on visiting. The major Museum Store, positioned throughout the new Museum, and the Museum Store in Palmer Square, positioned at 56 Nassau Street in downtown Princeton, are open every day, or store on-line at www.princetonmuseumstore.org.