Joseph Jachna

Courtesy of Anita D. Stiegler.

Joseph Jachna was born in Chicago and received a newspaper carrier’s scholarship to attend the Institute of Design (ID) in 1953 but left after one year to work at the local Eastman Kodak lab. He returned to the school in 1955 and studied with Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, and Frederick Sommer, earning a bachelor’s degree in art education in 1958. Deciding to focus on photography, Jachna worked for three years on his thesis—an in-depth photographic examination of water in all its manifestations and moods.

Jachna received his MS in 1961, and in the same year Aperture magazine showcased his photographs in a special issue featuring five ID graduate students. After Callahan’s departure from the school in 1961, Jachna taught alongside Siskind until 1969, when he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Chicago. He taught photography there until his retirement in 2001. Jachna is well-known for his photographs of the natural environments of the Midwest and Iceland. Among his many awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. His work is included in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago, any many others.