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 - 10 also.
This is part 11 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.
 |
| 1938 Filling truck with threshed grain, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
 |
| 1938 Getting ready for dinner during wheat harvest, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.3 cm |
 |
| 1938 Hardware store, Marion, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Hardware store, Somerset, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Harvest hand and helper on the Virgil Thaxton farm near Mechanicsburg, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Itinerant photographer in Columbus, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Loafers on street corner, small town, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Lunchroom in Columbus, Ohio gelatin silver print 16.5 x 24.1 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| 1938 Mailbox on farm in Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
 |
| 1938 Main and Court Streets, Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 14.5 x 23 cm |
 |
| 1938 Main and Court Streets, Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 16.1 x 23.6 cm |
 |
| 1938 Main and Court Streets, Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 16.1 x 23.8 cm Collection SFMoMA |
 |
| 1938 Main Street, Lancaster, Ohio gelatin silver print 16.4 x 24 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| 1938 Man with Troubles, Circleville's "Hooverville," Ohio, Summer 1938 gelatin silver print 25.4 x 20.6 cm Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas |
 |
| 1938 Members of Threshing Crew, Central Ohio gelatin silver street 20.5 x 25.3 cm |
 |
| 1938 Methodist church, Unionville Center, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Methodist church, Unionville Center, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Murals on Convention Hall at Buckeye Lake Amusement Park near Columbus, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.3 cm |
 |
| 1938 Old barn on Route 40, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Phrenology gelatin silver print 20.6 x 25.4 cm |
 |
| 1938 Political forum before dinner during wheat harvest, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Post office, Somerset, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Poster advertising public sale, Central Ohio gelatin silver street 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
 |
| 1938 Public auction in central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Public Auction, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.4 cm |
 |
| 1938 Railroad station of Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Refreshment counter stand at auction, Pickaway Livestock Cooperative Association gelatin silver print 20.6 x 25.5 cm |
 |
| 1938 Refreshment stand at county fair, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Religious Sign in Columbus, Ohio gelatin silver print 16.4 x 20.5 cm MoMA, New York |
 |
| 1938 Residents of Columbus, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Roadside Inn, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Saturday afternoon in London, Ohio, "the other side of the tracks" gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
 |
| 1938 Saturday Afternoon in London, Ohio, the "Main Street" gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Saturday Afternoon in London, Ohio,"The Main Street" gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.3 cm |
 |
| 1938 Scene on prosperous farm in Central Ohio gelatin silver print 15.9 x 23.8 cm |
 |
| 1938 Second hand store, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 24.8 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Secondhand clothing store, Columbus, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.2 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Sideshow, County Fair, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Sideshow, county fair, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.33 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Sideshows at the Ashville, July 4th celebration, Ashville, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Signs, Route 40, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Small Town Tackle Store, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Spectator at county fair in central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Spectators at county fair in central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Spectators at County Fair in Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.3 cm |
 |
| 1938 Spectators at County Fair, central Ohio gelatin silver print 16 x 24 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Spectators at County Fair, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.4 cm |
 |
| 1938 Spectators at County Fair, Central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.4 cm |
 |
| 1938 Stock feed in front of feed store, Route 40, central Ohio gelatin silver print 20.3 x 25.4 cm New York Public Library Digital Collections |
 |
| 1938 Stores in Plain City, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.5 x 25.3 cm |
 |
| 1938 Street Scene in Columbus, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.6 x 25.3 cm |
 |
| 1938 Street Scene, Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 12.3 x 17.7 cm Collection SFMoMA |
 |
| 1938 Street scene, Circleville, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Street Scene, Marysville, Ohio gelatin silver print 16.1 x 24.4 cm Collection SFMoMA |
 |
| 1938 Street scene, Washington Court House, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.4 x 25.3 cm © President and Fellows of Harvard College |
 |
| 1938 Street Scene, Washington Court House, Ohio gelatin silver print 20.6 x 25.3 cm |
