Gitterman Gallery is presenting "Vibrations of Nature: In-camera Multiple Exposures," an exhibition featuring the groundbreaking works of three influential photographers: Harry Callahan, Kenneth Josephson, and Ralph Eugene Meatyard. The exhibition brings together the works of these seminal artists, each of whom explored the expressive potential of multiple in-camera exposures to capture the energy and complexity of nature.
Harry Callahan (1912-1999) was a pioneering figure who taught at the Institute of Design in Chicago from 1946 to 1961, and later at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1961 to 1977. His work influenced generations of photographers and helped advance the art of photography. Callahan once declared, "I was making photography to find something different." He also explained, "I have observed that when a student or a person creates an image that really surprises you, it's because they have discovered something about themselves."
Kenneth Josephson, born in 1932, studied under Callahan and Aaron Siskind at the Institute of Design from 1958 to 1960, after earning his undergraduate degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he had studied with Minor White. After graduating in 1960, Josephson taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for nearly forty years and influenced generations of artists. Josephson became one of the pioneering figures in conceptual photography, with his innovative explorations often using photography as a means of reflection on itself and on our perception.
Inspired by Callahan's work on multiple exposures and encouraged by the experimental atmosphere at the Institute of Design, Josephson titled his graduate thesis "An Exploration of the Multiple Image." In it, he explained that harmonic polyphony in music and streams of consciousness in literature had excited him about the expressive possibilities offered by "multiple images on a single film exposed in the camera." He sought to expand photography's expressive vocabulary. While he used some of Callahan's camera positioning techniques, Josephson also created exposures with different degrees of focus while maintaining a fixed film plane, creating ethereal images that seem to reveal unsuspected dimensions. This exhibition presents four rare vintage prints from this early period of his career (1959-1961).
Ralph Eugene Meatyard (1925-1972) was both an optometrist and an artist. After initially working in Chicago, Meatyard moved to Lexington, Kentucky, where he became involved with the Lexington Camera Club. There, he was mentored by photographer and later curator Van Deren Coke, who introduced him to the concept that "the camera sees beyond visual consciousness." In 1956, Coke encouraged him to participate in a two-week photography seminar organized by Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University.
Meatyard was inspired by the work and ideas of the speakers, Smith and Aaron Siskind, and especially by Minor White, who introduced him to Zen philosophy. Meatyard's growing interest in Zen merged with his knowledge of optometry and optics, shaping much of his work, including the No-Focus, Light on Water, Zen Twigs, and Motion-Sound series. Interestingly, Meatyard was an expert in strabismus, a condition that can cause double vision, which is particularly relevant when considering his Motion-Sound series, which involves horizontal, vertical, or circular camera movements between exposures on the same negative.
In the preface to "Ralph Eugene Meatyard: A Fourfold Vision" (Nazraeli Press, 2005), photographer Emmet Gowin recalls meeting Meatyard in 1968 and discovering the Motion-Sound series. "Gene advised me to think in terms of vibration, or visible sound," Gowin remembered. He later stated, "Everything in these photographs reminds us that all of nature depends on its own rhythm."
"Vibrations of Nature: In-camera Multiple Exposures by Harry Callahan, Kenneth Josephson, and Ralph Eugene Meatyard" runs until November 1, 2025, at Gitterman Gallery, located at 3 E 66th St., New York, NY 10065. More information is available at www.gittermangallery.com.
