Kenneth L. Callahan

Kenneth L. Callahan

Callahan, Kenneth L.

Kenneth Callahan

Spokane 1905

Washington

California

Seattle 1986

painter

sculptor

Northwest artist

Over the course of his long career, Kenneth Callahan was a major figure in Seattle's art community. He wrote art columns for Seattle newspapers and for national publications such as ARTnews; his home was a gathering place for many local artists; he was a curator for the Seattle Art Museum from 1933 to 1953; he was an influential member of Seattle's loose affiliation of artists formed in 1937, the Group of Twelve, and a vocal supporter of innovation and modernism in a conservative art town; he was a visiting art professor around the country; and, not least, he exhibited internationally and had major solo shows in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle. Amazingly, he was for the most part a self-taught artist, Callahan said he strove in his paintings to convey "that eternal truthfulness and permanence that lies below the surfaces of life and objects."

Artist biography reproduced with permission of Katharine Harmon, author of The Pacific Northwest Landscape: A Painted History.

Male

Associate of: Morris Graves (American, 1910-2001)

Teacher of: Neil Meitzler (American, 1930-2009)

Associate of: Carl Morris (American, 1911-1993)