Around 1950, Harry Callahan produced Women Lost in Thought, a series of candid close-ups of anonymous female pedestrians on Chicago’s State Street. Uniting his quest for conceptual expression and devotion to precise craft, this innovative body of work explores a central theme in the photographer’s oeuvre: the modern urban landscape and its inhabitants.

Deeply shadowed and at times brooding, these images transcend the external cityscape to render visible the internal urban state of mind. As psychological portraits of the city, void of any direct reference to its physical architectural space, they capture moments of introspection and isolation amid the crowds and traffic of the modern metropolis. In Chicago (1950), Callahan’s subject remains unaware of his presence, her gaze detached and expression uncomposed as the light catches her cheekbone and earring. Though solitary and seemingly impersonal, the work presents a powerfully resonant portrayal of the post-war American spirit.