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.
Sharing a studio in 1929 with the photographer Walker Evans stimulated Shahn's own interest in photography; he began photographing people and street scenes, first in New York and later around the country. These photographs served as the basis for many of his prints and paintings. A series on his photographs will feature in the back end of these posts on Shahn.
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 & 2 also.
This is part 3 of a 12-part series on the works of Ben Shahn:
 |
| 1947 The Violin Player tempera on board 101.6 x 66 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| 1947 Trouble tempera on plywood 60.9 x 91.4 cm University of Nebraska |
 |
| 1948 A Good Man is Hard to Find colour lithograph 116.8 x 76.2 cm Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA |
 |
| 1948 Allegory tempera on panel 91.7 x 122.2 cm Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas |
 |
| 1948 Mine Disaster tempera on plywood 61 x 76.2 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
 |
| 1948 Silent Music casein tempera on canvas mounted on plywood panel 121.9 x 212 cm The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC |
 |
| 1948 Study for Song pencil and watercolour on paper 30.5 x 38.1 cm |
 |
| 1950 Song tempera 78 x 132 cm National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC |
 |
| 1949 Let Your Help Match His Courage tempera on composition board 116.8 x 76.2 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| 1949 Nocturne tempera 68.6 x 101.6 cm Cornell University, Ithica, NY |
 |
| 1949 Skaters pencil on paper 28.8 x 21.9 cm The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC |
 |
| 1949 Television #1 ( details not found ) |
 |
| c1949 Television #2 tempera and ink on cardboard 35.5 x 55.8 cm |
 |
| 1950 Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann Vintage Books |
 |
| 1950 Man Picking Wheat pen and ink |
 |
| 1979 Seize the Day by Saul Bellow Penguin Books |
 |
| 1950 Voting Booths gouache on canvas 40.2 x 30.4 cm Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC |
 |
| 1950 Where There is a Book There is No Sword screenprint 53.2 x 36.8 cm (sheet) MoMA, New York |
 |
| c1950 Mother and Child ink on paper 44.1 x 32.3 cm Albright-Knox, Buffalo, New York |
 |
| 1951 Byzantine Isometric tempera on canvas 101.6 x 67.3 cm |
 |
| 1951 Grinning Politicians brush and black ink on ivory wove paper 23.3 x 30.5 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
 |
| 1951 The Harpie gouache and ink on paper 65.7 x 98.1 cm |
 |
| 1952 Detail No.2: Labyrinth tempera on joined paper laid down on Masonite 153 x 57.8 cm |
 |
| 1952 Phoenix screenprint with watercolour additions 78.4 x 56.8 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| 1952 Scorn tempera on paper 99 x 64.1 cm Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
 |
| 1952 Triple Dip screenprint with watercolour additions 77.8 x 56.4 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| c1952 The Phoenix gouache and ink on board 40.6 x 40.6 cm |
 |
| 1953 Age of Anxiety tempera on paper mounted on fabric 78.7 x 131.9 cm Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC |
 |
| 1953 Age of Anxiety tempera on paper mounted on fabric mounted on fibreboard 78.7 x 131.9 cm Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC |
 |
| 1953 Arch of Triumph gouache on paper laid down on board 58.1 x 75.2 cm |
 |
| 1953 Patterson screenprint with colour pochoir 78.7 x 56.5 cm Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA |
 |
| c1953 The World of Sholom Aleichem 10-inch LP album cover |
 |
| c1953 Three Dancers (Small) ink 30 x 24 cm |
 |
| 1954 Beatitude colour wood engraving 25.8 x 38.7 cm (image) MoMA, New York cm |
 |
| before 1954 Arabs watercolour on paper 39.3 x 29.5 cm Albright-Knox, Buffalo, New York |
 |
| 1954 Credo watercolour and gouache 30.5 x 22.5 cm |
 |
| 1954 Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer ink on paper 49.5 x 31 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| 1954 Everyman tempera and oil on canvas 183.2 x 61 cm Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
 |
| 1954 Maimonides "Teach Thy Tongue To Say I Do Not Know And Thou Shalt Progress Art" tempera on paper mounted on panel 90.2 x 67.3 cm The Jewish Museum, New York |
 |
| 1954 Te Deum album cover ( Original artwork: ink on paper 29.8 x 31.1 cm ) |
 |
| 1955 Fortune magazine August cover |
 |
| 1955 Men are men before they are lawyers or physicians... brush and ink on paper mounted on paperboard 58.1 x 34.6 cm Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC |
 |
| 1955 Self-Portrait ink on paper 24.7 x 15.4 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| Great Ideas of Western Man No. 5: Voting Booths. Ben Shahn on John Locke |
 |
| Great Ideas of Western Man "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."--John, Viscount Morley On Compromise, 1874 screenprint and ink on paper Smithsonian American Art Museum |
 |
| Great Ideas of Western Man "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." |
 |
| c1955 No Man Can Command My Conscience brush on paper 15.2 x 10.8 cm |
 |
| c1955 No Man Can Command My Conscience brush on paper 15.2 x 13.3 cm |
 |
| c1955 No Man Can Command My Conscience brush on paper |
 |
| 1956 ( drawing made) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Penguin Modern Classic paperback |
 |
| 1956 Homage to Mistress Bradstreet by John Berryman Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York |
 |
| 1956 Interior tempera on canvas mounted on board 43.2 x 53.3 cm |
 |
| 1956 Study for Goyescas watercolour on paper 64.7 x 76.2 cm Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio |
 |
| c1956 The Autobiography of Michel de Montaigne Vintage Books |
 |
| 1956 Mine Building screenprint with hand additions 44.2 x 72.5 cm (image) MoMA, New York |
 |
| 1957 Rendezvous with Destiny by Eric F. Goldman Vintage Books |
 |
| 1957 Scientist screenprint with hand additions 30 x 25.2 cm MoMA, New York |
Note: I try to post three times a week whenever possible, usually Monday, Wednesday & Friday.
I also put notice and a link on Twitter: @poulwebb
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.