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Callahan, Kenneth

Last Name:	Callahan
First Name:	Kenneth
Dates:	1905 (Date of Birth) 1986 (Date of Death)
Biography/History:	Kenneth Callahan was born on October 30, 1905 in Spokane, Washington and he passed away on May 8, 1986 in Long Beach, Washington. He moved from Spokane to Montana when he was 6 years old and grew up in Glasgow, Montana. He began painting watercolors at age 7, and his interest in painting was created by looking at Charley Russell paintings as well as by watching neighbor Ralph Breckenridge paint and painting with him. After touring the world as a ship steward, he settled in Seattle, Washington with his wife Margaret. Their house became the gathering place of many of the important Northwest Artists of the early 20th Century. He spent his career creating art, writing about art for the local and national papers, and curating art at the Seattle Art Museum. He is considered by many to be one of the leading artists of the Pacific Northwest. As a young painter he was exhibited in the First Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art at the Whitney Museum in New York. He subsequently was recognized in a breakthrough 1953 Life magazine article as one of the "Mystic Painters of the Northwest." He spent years working as a curator at the Seattle Art Museum, and when he was fired in 1953 (he had been using the museum as a studio, which a new curator found reprehensible), he continued painting and selling paintings from his studio on the south fork of the Stillaguamish River, near Granite Falls in Snohomish County.
Related Objects:	2540.1 (Painting, Three Horses, 1956) 2979.2 (Painting, Mexican Dogs, 1950's) 4234.5 (Painting, The Meeting, 1965) 4234.6 (Painting, Rising Waves, 1979)