Siskind and Harry Callahan were friends and colleagues who taught summer courses together in 1951 at Black Mountain College near Asheville, N.C., alongside artists Robert Motherwell and Elaine de Kooning, who called him “a painter’s photographer.” (Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly were Black Mountain students at the time.) At the invitation of Callahan, Siskind joined the faculty of the Illinois Institute of Design in Chicago the same year. Famous for their collaborative synergy, they later taught together at Rhode Island School of Design.—Aaron Siskind Foundation
