Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan

A richly illustrated look at three visionary artists who charted new directions for photography in midcentury AmericaMinor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan carved out a new role for photographers and their art in the decades after World War Two. Photography as a Way of Life traces how these influential teachers and theorists reimagined the medium as a livelihood and a life’s work.Together with growing markets for snapshots and photojournalism, the postwar years saw the emergence of photography as an established field of study in higher education. In this beautifully produced book, Brendan Fay takes readers from the late 1940s through the 1970s to explore how White, Siskind, and Callahan transformed the ways photography was taught, shown, and understood. Inclined toward abstraction and personally expressive images, they modeled a commitment to art in the face of commercial and professional pressures. In classrooms and private workshops and through exhibitions, photobooks, and magazines—including Aperture, with White as its founding editor—they offered training and inspiration while building a devoted audience for their pictures.Blending stunning illustrations with rare archival material published here for the first time, Photography as a Way of Life brings together the work of three boldly inventive artists and educators who opened new possibilities for photography in postwar America and exemplified a vision of learning and living through photography.Published in association with the Princeton University Art MuseumExhibition SchedulePrinceton University Art Museum, Princeton, New JerseyApril 18–September 7, 2026

About the Author

Brendan Fay is associate professor of art history in the School of Art and Design at Eastern Michigan University.