Photographers Chip Simone and John McWilliams, personal friends of the late photographer Harry Callahan, joined Julian Cox to discuss the artist and his muse, Eleanor, as teacher and artist, and to feature examples of their own work.
Chip Simone has been making photographs for more than four decades. His interest in photography began in the mid-1950s and he was formally educated in the visual arts and the history and traditions of creative photography at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1964-67. Chip studied with world-renowned photographer Harry Callahan who inspired him to develop a personal way of seeing and to let photography give meaning to his life. Chip first exhibited work in 1966 at the Hallmark gallery in New York City. In 1973 he was a founding member of NEXUS, Atlantas first photography gallery. In 1980 his work was exhibited at the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, NY. In 1982 he received a Photographers' Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1985 The French Ministry of Culture exhibited his work at the Chapelle De La Sorbonne in Paris, The Refectoir Des Jacobin in Toulouse, and The Centre Daction Culturelle in Angouleme as part of the Atlanta in France cultural exchange. In 1996 he published *On Common Ground, Photographs from the Crossroads of the New South*. Chips photographs are included in the permanent collections of Atlanta's High Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (NY), The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, The Houston Museum of Fine Art and The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia.
John McWilliams acquired his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He is currently the Director of the Georgia State University School of Art and Design, and has been a part of the GSU faculty since 1969. McWilliams has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. While McWilliams is primarily a photographer, his current work incorporates drawing and bookmaking processes. His artwork is in a number of private and corporate collections including the Modern Museum of Art, New York, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and at the Smithsonian Museum of american Art. In addition, McWilliams has been published in numerous periodicals and books including Land of Deepest Shade: Photographs of the South as well as Sea Change: The Seascape in Contemporary Photography. Besides his personal and professional engagements as a photographer and educator, McWilliams is committed to a number of professional/civic activities. Most recently he was appointed to represent Georgia State University as a member of the Fulton County Arts Council. He has also served on the Board of Directors of the High Museum Photo Forum, Nexus Contemporary Arts Center as well as the Atlanta Photography Group.
Julian Cox was appointed as the new curator of photography at the High Museum of Art in April 2005. Cox comes to the High from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles where he served as associate curator in the department of photographs. He is a co-author of the critically acclaimed publication *Julia Margaret Cameron: The Complete Photographs* (2003), the first catalogue of her work. He has also worked at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford, England, and the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. He received a Master of Philosophy degree in the history of photography from the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1990, and a BA in art history from the University of Manchester, England, in 1987.