Kenneth Callahan (Uncommon Gifts)

Uncommon Gifts

Kenneth Callahan

(1905-1986)

"I wanted to be an artist and that was that.  Whatever that meant, I accepted that completely without thought... It's just simply the only way I can conceive of living.... It just always had been so.  It's like how tall I am.  There's no point in arguing about it."

Oral history interview with Kenneth Callahan, 1982
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution

Callahan remembered his mother dampening and ironing the cheesecloth-backed paintings in process that Charles M. Russell (1864-1926) carried in his backpack to the Callahan home in Glasgow, Montana. Encouraged by his mother, Callahan began painting watercolors when he was seven. His friendship with local Blackfoot Indian bronco riding champ, Ralph Breckenridge, also a painter, helped Kenneth avoid being beaten up for such "sissy stuff."

Born in Spokane, Kenneth was raised in Montana and spent most of his adult life in the Seattle area where he established himself as one of the leading Northwest painters of the 20th century. He received attention early in his career and made important contributions to the development of Northwest art as a curator and art critic during the 1950s. His Seattle home became a central gathering place of many important Northwest artists of the early 20th century.

• Callahan was only 27 when his work was included in the seminal First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art at the Whitney Museum, in New York, 1933
• Life magazine dubbed him one of the four leading Pacific Northwest painters, 1953
• Curator, Seattle Art Museum, 1933-1953
• Art Critic, The Seattle Times, 1950s
• Guggenheim Fellowship, 1954
• Major retrospective, Henry Art Gallery, 1973