Ben Shahn was a Lithuanian-born American artist and member of the Social Realist movement. His expressive figurative paintings, murals, and posters were inexorably tied to his pursuit of social justice and lifelong activism within leftist political beliefs. Shahn unflinchingly critiqued the government and society, as seen in his The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti (1931–1932), a painting which condemned the controversial conviction of two Italian-American immigrants who were sentenced to death in 1927. “The artist must operate on the assumption that the public consists in the highest order of individual—that he is civilised, cultured, and highly sensitive both to emotional and intellectual contexts,” he once stated. “And while the whole public most certainly does not consist in that sort of individual, still the tendency of art is to create such a public—to lift the level of perceptivity, to increase and enrich the average individual's store of values.”
Born in 1898 in Kaunas, Lithuania into an Orthodox Jewish family, he and his family emigrated to New York in 1906. Shahn went on to study at the National Academy of Design in New York and travelled throughout Europe during the 1920s. Upon his return to the United States, he assisted Diego Rivera in 1933 for the painting of his Man at the Crossroads fresco in Rockefeller Center. During the latter part of his career, the artist’s paintings became more symbolic of his own emotional state rather than a description of social injustices.
He died in March 1969 in New York City. Today, Shahn’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others.
For earlier works by Ben Shahn see parts 1 - 9 also.
This is part 10 of a 12-part series on the works of Ben Shahn which features Shahn's photography:
In the early 1930s, Shahn shared a Greenwich studio with photographer, Walker Evans, from whom he learned much of the technical craft of photography. It was not long after that Shahn began to discover that taking a photograph brought a certain amount of creative satisfaction and he began to split his time between taking photographs and working on his paintings and drawings.
He attended street demonstrations and picket lines regularly and photographed the unemployed and homeless. As in his paintings and drawings from the period, and later in his photographs for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), Shahn was drawn to scenes of human interest. Shahn sought out spontaneous expressions in his subjects in striking, thoughtful compositions. Utilising unusual perspectives, Shahn often used a right-angle viewfinder attached to his camera which allowed him to look down while taking photographs of subjects unaware to his right. The result was candid, humanistic views of Americans in the depression era.
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| 1935 Two women walking along street, Natchez, Mississippi gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1935 Unemployed trappers, Louisiana gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1935 Untitled (Mulhall Family, Ozarks, Arkansas) gelatin silver print 20.2 x 25 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1935 Waiting for relief agent, Scott's Run, (Monongalia County), West Virginia gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1935 Waiting for relief agent, Scott's Run, (Monongalia County), West Virginia gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1935 Wife and children of Sharecropper Arkansas gelatin silver print 18.7 x 24.6 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1935 Williamson, West Virginia. A railroad yard with cars loaded with coal gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| c1935-38 We Cater to White Trade Only gelatin silver print 15.9 x 24.1 cm |
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| c1935-39 Resident of Plain City, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.6 x 25.5 cm |
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| c1935-39 Sign on outskirts of Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print |
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| 1935 A Medicine Show Audience, Huntingdon, Tennessee gelatin silver print 12.2 x 17.7 cm Collection SFMoMA |
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| c1935 Haystacks and Farmers, Pulaski County, Arkansas gelatin silver print 16.5 x 24 cm |
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| c1935 Sharecroppers, Pulaski Co., Ark. gelatin silver print 203 x 25.4 cm The New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| c1935 The Little Family of a Coal Miner in West Virginia, During the Great Depression gelatin silver print 16.5 x 24.1 cm |
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| c1935 Untitled gelatin silver print 16.1 x 24 cm MoMA, New York |
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| 1936 New York gelatin silver print 15.2 x 21 cm MoMA, New York |
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| 1937 Audience at square dance, Skyline Farms, Alabama gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1937 Jeeter Gentry, Elmer Thompson and Fiddlin' Bill Henseley, Asheville, North Carolina gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1937 One of the Westmoreland homesteaders playing his violin, Pennsylvania gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1937 Washing a prize bull at the dairy barn, Red House, West Virginia gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1937 Westmoreland homesteader playing a mouth organ and a guitar, Pennsylvania gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1937-38 Middle panel of the Jersey Homesteads mural |
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| 1938 "Test your strength," County Fair, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1938 A cleaning and pressing shop in Urbana, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
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| 1938 A Public Auction in Central Ohio, August gelatin silver print 25.5 x 20.6 cm Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| 1938 Advertising feeds at county fair, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
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| 1938 Along main street, Lancaster, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| Amish Horse-drawn Wagon, Plain City, Ohio, August 1938 gelatin silver print 25.4 x 20.5 cm Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| 1938 Attendant at County Fair, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm |
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| 1938 Auctioneer at public auction, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
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| 1938 Barn and silo in Central Ohio, Woodstock, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
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| 1938 Barn in Central Ohio gelatin silver print 15.7 x 23.8 cm |
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| 1938 Barn on Route 40, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1938 Blacksmith Shop, London, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
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| 1938 Business District of Urbana, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.5 cm |
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| 1938 Campaign Posters, Central Ohio, Route 40 gelatin silver print 16.7 x 24.1 cm MoMA, New York |
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| 1938 Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 15.2 x 23.2 cm MoMA, New York |
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| Cranking Car to Get It Started, the Old Way, Worthington, Ohio, August 1938 gelatin silver print 25.4 x 20.5 cm Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| 1938 Daughter of Mr. Thaxton, Farmer, near Mechanicsburg, Ohio gelatin silver print 25.4 x 20.6 cm Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| 1938 Detail of a log fence in central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Dinner during wheat harvest time, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.2 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Downtown scene, Somerset, Ohio photograph 22.2 x 33 cm |
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| 1938 Drugstore window, Newark, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
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| 1938 Dwellers in Circleville's "Hooverville," central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Dwellers in Circleville's "Hooverville," central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Dwellers in Circleville's "Hooverville," central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Dwellers in Circleville's "Hooverville," central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Environs of Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 14.4 x 24.1 cm |
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| 1938 Environs of Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
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| 1938 Ex-farmer and child, now on W.P.A., central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Family in Marysville, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.6 x 25.4 cm |
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| 1938 Family on relief, Lancaster, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Farm people at fair in central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Farm People at the Fair, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| 1938 Farmer hauling wheat to elevator, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Farmer's wife watching proceedings at farm auction, New Carlisle, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
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| 1938 Farmhouse, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
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