Store Front and Reflections c. 1943

Editor: This is Harry Callahan's "Store Front and Reflections," circa 1943, a black and white photograph. I'm struck by the layers here: the street scene, the mannequins, and the reflections that almost blend the two worlds. How do you interpret this work? Curator: The reflections, indeed, collapse time and space. We see mannequins, symbols of manufactured desire, positioned against the flow of real people. Callahan's genius lies in capturing this interplay between the artificial and the authentic. What does the repetition of faces suggest to you? The real and the reflected. Editor: It feels a little like he’s saying something about identity – maybe how we present ourselves versus who we really are? The reflections are distorted, not a perfect representation. Curator: Precisely! And consider the cultural memory embedded within those reflections. This image dates from the early 1940s, a time of both optimism and anxiety. Do you think the presence of the mannequins is also related to the impact of wartime on societal expectations of appearance? Editor: Possibly. I hadn't thought about it that way. I suppose the mannequins present an ideal, which seems almost brittle considering the realities of the war. It makes me wonder what the clothes displayed signify too, like cultural aspirations and symbols of better days. Curator: You’ve picked up on it! What might appear simply as an observation becomes a layered exploration of identity, expectation, and the human condition mirrored, quite literally, in a store front. This speaks volumes of how symbols, even mundane ones, communicate on many levels about ourselves, society and the culture we are in. Editor: It's fascinating to see how much depth Callahan was able to achieve in a single image!