Paul Calhoun

Paul Calhoun’s photographs have been exhibited and publishedin New York, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, the Far East, and Europe.  In addition, his photographic work has been
supported by a number of public and private foundations including theNational Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the New York State Council on the Arts, The Wisconsin Arts Board, and the Wisconsin Humanities Council. In 1991 his work in New York’s Chinatown was recognized as an outstanding contribution to the arts by New York State. He most recently has been the recipient of three grants, from the Helen Bader Foundation, and two from the Forever Friends Foundation.

As an educator Mr. Calhoun has worked with street children in Eastern Europe, high school students, and in undergraduate and graduate programs as well. Currently he teaches photography at several universities in the Milwaukee area, and works with at risk teens in Milwaukee as well as in Eastern Europe. In 2010, with funding from the Wisconsin Humanities Council and Chicago Public Radio, he produced “After the Wars”, an exhibition of photographs and oral histories of American combat veterans with his son Ben Calhoun, a journalist with the National Public Radio show, “This American Life”.

 His work has been recognized as an outstanding contribution to the arts by New York State, and “After the Wars” was featured at the 3rd Coast Audio Festival in Chicago as well as nominated for the Peter Lisagor Award for excellence in journalism. Most recently, he received a grant from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation to work with Milwaukee high school students in the development of an exhibition of photographs, murals, and interviews about Bronzeville, the former center of African American life and culture in Milwaukee that was leveled by urban renewal projects in the early 1960’s, and a grant from the Helen Bader Foundation to work with disadvantaged young people in Milwaukee.