Ben Shahn
Encyclopedia
Ben Shahn was a Lithuania
n-born American artist
. He is best known for his works of social realism
, his left-wing
political views, and his series of lecture
s published as The Shape of Content.
), Russian Empire
, to Joshua Hessel and Gittel (Lieberman) Shahn. His father was exiled to Siberia
for possible revolutionary activities in 1902, at which point Shahn, his mother, and two younger siblings moved to Vilkomir (Ukmergė
). In 1906, the family immigrated to the United States
where they rejoined Hessel, who had fled Siberia. They settled in the Williamsburg
section of Brooklyn, New York where two more siblings were born. Shahn began his path to becoming an artist in New York, where he was first trained as a lithographer. Shahn's early experiences with lithography
and graphic design
is apparent in his later prints and paintings which often include the combination of text and image. Shahn's primary medium was egg tempera, popular among social realists.
Although Shahn attended New York University
as a biology student in 1919, he went on to pursue art at City College
in 1921 and then at the National Academy of Design
. After his marriage to Tillie Goldstein in 1924, the two traveled through North Africa
and then to Europe, where he made "the traditional artist pilgrimage." There he studied great European artists such as Henri Matisse
, Raoul Dufy
, Georges Rouault
, Pablo Picasso
and Paul Klee
. Contemporaries who would make a profound impact on Shahn’s work and career include artists Walker Evans
, Diego Rivera
and Jean Charlot
.
Shahn was dissatisfied with the work inspired by his travels, claiming that the pieces were unoriginal. Shahn eventually outgrew his pursuit of European modern art
; he, instead, redirected his efforts toward a realist style which he used to contribute to social dialogue.
The 23 gouache
paintings of the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti
communicated the political concerns of his time, rejecting academic prescriptions for subject matter. The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti was exhibited in 1932 and received acclaim from both the public and critics. This series gave Shahn the confidence to cultivate his personal style, regardless of society’s art standards.
Shahn's subsequent series of California labor leader Tom Mooney
won him the recognition of Diego Rivera. In May and June 1933, he served as an assistant to Diego Rivera while Rivera executed the infamous Rockefeller Center
mural. Shahn had a role in fanning the controversy, by circulating a petition among the workers. Also during this period, Shahn met photojournalist Bernarda Bryson
, who would later become his second wife. Although this marriage was successful, the mural, his 1934 project for the Public Works of Art Projects and proposal for the Municipal Art Commission were all failures. Fortunately, in 1935, Shahn was recommended by Walker Evans
, a friend and former roommate, to Roy Stryker
to join the photographic group at the Farm Security Administration
(FSA). As a member of the FSA group, Shahn roamed and documented the American south together with his colleagues Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange
. Like his earlier photography of New York City, Shahn’s FSA work can be viewed as social-documentary. Similarly, Shahn’s New Deal
art for the FSA and Resettlement Agency exposed American living and working conditions. He also worked for these agencies as a graphic artist and painter. Shahn’s fresco mural for the community center of Jersey Homesteads is among his most famous works, but the government also hired Shahn to execute the Bronx Central Annex Post Office and Social Security murals. In 1939, Shahn and his wife produced a set of 13 murals inspired by Walt Whitman
's poem I See America Working and installed at the United States Post Office-Bronx Central Annex
. Curator Susan Edwards recognizes the influence of this art on the public consciousness, writing, "The Roosevelt administration
believed [such] images were useful for persuading not only voters but members of Congress to support federal relief and recovery programs… The art he made for the federal government affirms both his own legacy and that of the New Deal."
During the war years of 1942-43, Shahn worked for the Office of War Information (OWI), but his pieces lacked the preferred patriotism of the day and only two of his posters were published. His art's anti-war
sentiment found other forms of expression in a series of paintings from 1944–45, such as Death on the Beach, which depicts the desolation and loneliness of war.
He also did a series about the Daigo Fukuryū Maru
, the Japanese fishing boat caught in the Bikini Atoll
hydrogen bomb blast, called Lucky Dragon.
Shahn also began to act as a commercial artist for CBS, Time, Fortune and Harper's
. His well-known 1965 portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr.
appeared on the cover of Time. Despite Shahn's growing popularity, he only accepted commissions
which he felt were of personal or social value. By the mid-1950s, Shahn's accomplishments had reached such a height that he was sent, along with Willem de Kooning
, to represent the United States at the 1954 Venice Biennale
. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
, the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Academia dell' Arte e del Disegno
in Florence
. The Art Directors Club Hall of Fame recognizes him as "one of the greatest masters of the twentieth century. Honors, books, and gallery retrospectives continue to rekindle interest in his work...years after his death."
The artist was especially active as an academic in the last two decades of his life. He received honorary doctorates
from Princeton University
and Harvard University
, and joined Harvard as a Charles Eliot Norton
professor in 1956. His published writings, including The Biography of Painting (1956) and The Shape of Content (1960), became influential works in the art world.
After his death, William Schuman
composed "In Praise of Shahn", a modern canticle
for orchestra, first performed January 29, 1970, by the New York Philharmonic
, Leonard Bernstein
conducting.
Shahn defended his choice to employ pictorial realities, rather than abstract forms. According to Shahn, known forms allow the artist “to discover new truths about man and to reaffirm that his life is significant.” References to allegory, the Old Testament, humanistic content, childhood, science, music and the commonplace are other motifs Shahn draws upon to make the universal personal for his viewers. Wit, candor and sentimentality give his images poignancy. By evoking dynamism, Shahn intended to inspire social change. Shahn stressed that in art, as in life, the combination of opposing orders is vital for progress. His hope for a unity among the diverse peoples of the United States relates to his interest in fusing different visual vocabularies.
s of art. His body of art is distinctive for its lack of traditional landscape
s, still life
s, and portrait
s. Shahn used both expressive and precise visual languages, which he coalesced through the consistency of his authoritative line. His background in lithography
contributed to his detail-oriented look Shahn is also noted for his use of unique symbolism, which is often compared to the imagery in Paul Klee's drawings. While Shahn's "love for exactitude" is apparent in his graphics, so too is his creativity. In fact, many of his paintings are inventive adaptations of his photography.
Evocative juxtapositions characterize his aesthetic. He intentionally paired contrasting scales, colors, and images together to create tension. One signature example is seen in his play between industrial coolness and sympathetic portrayals. Handball demonstrates his "use of architectural settings as both psychological foil to human figures and as expressive abstract pattern."
His art is striking but also introspective. He often captured figures engrossed in their own worlds. Many of his photographs were taken spontaneously, without the subject's notice. Although he used many mediums, his pieces are consistently thoughtful and playful.
The Farm Security Administration
commissioned Ben Shahn to paint a mural for the community center of Jersey Homesteads
(later renamed Roosevelt), a New Jersey
town initially planned to be a community for Jewish garment workers. Shahn's move to the settlement demonstrates his dedication to the project as does his mural's compelling depiction of the town's founding.
Three panels compose the mural. According to art historian Diana L. Linden, the panels' sequence relates to that of the Haggadah
, the Jewish Passover Seder
text which follows a narrative of slavery
, deliverance and redemption. More specifically, Shahn’s mural depicts immigrants' struggle and advancement in the United States.
The first panel shows the antisemitic and xenophobic
obstacles American immigrants faced. During the global Depression, citizens of the United States struggled for their livelihoods. Because foreigners represented competition for employment, they were especially unwelcome. National immigration quotas also reflected the strained foreign relations of the United States at a time when fascism
, Nazism
, and communism
were on the rise. To illustrate the political and social adversary, Shahn incorporated loaded iconography: Nazi soldiers, anti-Jewish signs and the executed Italian anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti
. Below, Shahn's mother and Albert Einstein
lead immigrants on a gangplank situated by the Ellis Island
registry center and the Statue of Liberty
. This section demonstrates the immigrants' heroic emergence in the United States.
The middle panel describes the poor living conditions awaiting immigrants after their arrival. On the right, Shahn depicts the inhuman labor situation in the form of "lightless sweatshops...tedious and backbreaking work with outmoded tools." The crowd in the center of the composition represents labor unions and workers' reform efforts. Here, a figure resembling labor leader John L. Lewis
protests in front of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company
, where a devastating fire occurred and the movement for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) began. The lower right passageway marked ILGWU symbolizes a new and hopeful path, in United States, paved by unionized labor.
In the last panel, the unions and the New Deal unite to create the blueprint
for the town of the Jersey Homesteads. Various figures of social progress such as Sidney Hillman
and Heywood Broun
gather around the drafting table. Above them are images of the purposed cooperative
farm and factory along with a campaign poster of Roosevelt, after whom the town was eventually named.
Shahn’s biographer Soby notes "the composition of the mural at Roosevelt follows the undulant principle Shahn had learned from Diego Rivera
: deep recession of space alternating with human and architectural details projected forward." Moreover, the montage effectively intimates the amalgamation of peoples and cultures populating the urban landscape in the early twentieth century. Multiple layers and perspectives fuse together to portray a complex industrialized system. Still, the mural maintains a sense of humanity; Shahn gives his figures a monumental quality through volume and scale. The urban architecture does not dwarf the people; instead, they work with the surroundings to build their own structure. Shahn captured the urgency for activism and reform, by showing gestures and mid-steps and freezing all the subjects in motion. This pictorial incorporation of "athletic pose and evocative asymmetry of architectural detail" is a Shahn trademark. While exemplifying his visual and social concerns, the mural characterizes the general issues of Shahn's milieu.
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n-born American artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
. He is best known for his works of social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
, his left-wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
political views, and his series of lecture
Lecture
thumb|A lecture on [[linear algebra]] at the [[Helsinki University of Technology]]A lecture is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical information, history,...
s published as The Shape of Content.
Biography
Shahn was born in Kovno (KaunasKaunas
Kaunas is the second-largest city in Lithuania and has historically been a leading centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the biggest city and the center of a powiat in Trakai Voivodeship of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania since 1413. During Russian Empire occupation...
), Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
, to Joshua Hessel and Gittel (Lieberman) Shahn. His father was exiled to Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
for possible revolutionary activities in 1902, at which point Shahn, his mother, and two younger siblings moved to Vilkomir (Ukmergė
Ukmerge
-Early history:Ukmergė was first mentioned as a settlement in 1333. It was essentially a wooden fortress that stood on a hill, near the confluence of the Vilkmergė River and the Šventoji River. Ukmergė was attacked by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order in 1333, 1365, 1378, 1386, and even...
). In 1906, the family immigrated to the United States
Immigration to the United States
Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
where they rejoined Hessel, who had fled Siberia. They settled in the Williamsburg
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Williamsburg is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, bordering Greenpoint to the north, Bedford-Stuyvesant to the south, Bushwick to the east and the East River to the west. The neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 1. The neighborhood is served by the NYPD's 90th ...
section of Brooklyn, New York where two more siblings were born. Shahn began his path to becoming an artist in New York, where he was first trained as a lithographer. Shahn's early experiences with lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
and graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
is apparent in his later prints and paintings which often include the combination of text and image. Shahn's primary medium was egg tempera, popular among social realists.
Although Shahn attended New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
as a biology student in 1919, he went on to pursue art at City College
City College of New York
The City College of the City University of New York is a senior college of the City University of New York , in New York City. It is also the oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning...
in 1921 and then at the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
. After his marriage to Tillie Goldstein in 1924, the two traveled through North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
and then to Europe, where he made "the traditional artist pilgrimage." There he studied great European artists such as Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy[p] was a French Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events...
, Georges Rouault
Georges Rouault
Georges Henri Rouault[p] was a French Fauvist and Expressionist painter, and printmaker in lithography and etching.-Childhood and education:Rouault was born in Paris into a poor family...
, Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
and Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
. Contemporaries who would make a profound impact on Shahn’s work and career include artists Walker Evans
Walker Evans
Walker Evans was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans's work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera...
, Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
and Jean Charlot
Jean Charlot
Louis Henri Jean Charlot was a French painter and illustrator, active in Mexico and the United States. Charlot was born in Paris. His father, Henri, owned an import-export business and was a Russian-born émigré, albeit one who supported the Bolshevik cause. His mother Anna was herself an artist...
.
Shahn was dissatisfied with the work inspired by his travels, claiming that the pieces were unoriginal. Shahn eventually outgrew his pursuit of European modern art
Modern art
Modern art includes artistic works produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the style and philosophy of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the traditions of the past have been thrown aside in a spirit of...
; he, instead, redirected his efforts toward a realist style which he used to contribute to social dialogue.
The 23 gouache
Gouache
Gouache[p], also spelled guache, the name of which derives from the Italian guazzo, water paint, splash or bodycolor is a type of paint consisting of pigment suspended in water. A binding agent, usually gum arabic, is also present, just as in watercolor...
paintings of the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
communicated the political concerns of his time, rejecting academic prescriptions for subject matter. The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti was exhibited in 1932 and received acclaim from both the public and critics. This series gave Shahn the confidence to cultivate his personal style, regardless of society’s art standards.
Work during the Great Depression
Thomas Mooney
Thomas Joseph "Tom" Mooney was an American political activist and labor leader, who was convicted with Warren K. Billings of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916...
won him the recognition of Diego Rivera. In May and June 1933, he served as an assistant to Diego Rivera while Rivera executed the infamous Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...
mural. Shahn had a role in fanning the controversy, by circulating a petition among the workers. Also during this period, Shahn met photojournalist Bernarda Bryson
Bernarda Bryson Shahn
Bernarda Bryson Shahn was an American painter, lithographer and widow of renowned artist Ben Shahn, who wrote and illustrated children's books including "The Zoo of Zeus" and "Gilgamesh."...
, who would later become his second wife. Although this marriage was successful, the mural, his 1934 project for the Public Works of Art Projects and proposal for the Municipal Art Commission were all failures. Fortunately, in 1935, Shahn was recommended by Walker Evans
Walker Evans
Walker Evans was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans's work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera...
, a friend and former roommate, to Roy Stryker
Roy Stryker
Roy Emerson Stryker was an American economist, government official, and photographer. He is most famous for heading the Information Division of the Farm Security Administration during the Great Depression and launching the documentary photography movement of the FSA.After serving in the infantry...
to join the photographic group at the Farm Security Administration
Farm Security Administration
Initially created as the Resettlement Administration in 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States, the Farm Security Administration was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty...
(FSA). As a member of the FSA group, Shahn roamed and documented the American south together with his colleagues Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
. Like his earlier photography of New York City, Shahn’s FSA work can be viewed as social-documentary. Similarly, Shahn’s New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
art for the FSA and Resettlement Agency exposed American living and working conditions. He also worked for these agencies as a graphic artist and painter. Shahn’s fresco mural for the community center of Jersey Homesteads is among his most famous works, but the government also hired Shahn to execute the Bronx Central Annex Post Office and Social Security murals. In 1939, Shahn and his wife produced a set of 13 murals inspired by Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
's poem I See America Working and installed at the United States Post Office-Bronx Central Annex
United States Post Office-Bronx Central Annex
Bronx Central Annex-U.S. Post Office is a historic post office building located at the Bronx, New York, United States. It was built from 1935 to 1937, and designed by consulting architect Thomas Harlan Ellett for the Office of the Supervising Architect. The building is constructed of smooth gray...
. Curator Susan Edwards recognizes the influence of this art on the public consciousness, writing, "The Roosevelt administration
Roosevelt Administration
There have been two Presidents of the United States with the surname "Roosevelt":*Theodore Roosevelt Administration, the 26th President of the United States, 1901 - 1909*Franklin D. Roosevelt Administration, the 32nd President of the United States, 1933 - 1945...
believed [such] images were useful for persuading not only voters but members of Congress to support federal relief and recovery programs… The art he made for the federal government affirms both his own legacy and that of the New Deal."
World War II and beyond
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
sentiment found other forms of expression in a series of paintings from 1944–45, such as Death on the Beach, which depicts the desolation and loneliness of war.
He also did a series about the Daigo Fukuryū Maru
Daigo Fukuryu Maru
was a Japanese tuna fishing boat, which was exposed to and contaminated by nuclear fallout from the United States' Castle Bravo thermonuclear device test on Bikini Atoll, on 1 March 1954....
, the Japanese fishing boat caught in the Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll
Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands....
hydrogen bomb blast, called Lucky Dragon.
Shahn also began to act as a commercial artist for CBS, Time, Fortune and Harper's
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
. His well-known 1965 portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was an American clergyman, activist, and prominent leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. He is best known for being an iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the...
appeared on the cover of Time. Despite Shahn's growing popularity, he only accepted commissions
Commission (art)
In art, a commission is the hiring and payment for the creation of a piece, often on behalf of another.In classical music, ensembles often commission pieces from composers, where the ensemble secures the composer's payment from private or public organizations or donors.- Commissions for public art...
which he felt were of personal or social value. By the mid-1950s, Shahn's accomplishments had reached such a height that he was sent, along with Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
, to represent the United States at the 1954 Venice Biennale
Venice Biennale
The Venice Biennale is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The Venice Film Festival is part of it. So too is the Venice Biennale of Architecture, which is held in even years...
. He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, the National Institute of Arts and Letters and the Academia dell' Arte e del Disegno
Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze
The Accademia di Belle Arti is an art academy in Florence, Italy and it is now the operative branch of the still existing Accademia delle Arti del Disegno that was the first academy of drawing in Europe.-History:The Accademia delle Arti del Disegno The Accademia di Belle Arti ("Academy of Fine...
in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. The Art Directors Club Hall of Fame recognizes him as "one of the greatest masters of the twentieth century. Honors, books, and gallery retrospectives continue to rekindle interest in his work...years after his death."
The artist was especially active as an academic in the last two decades of his life. He received honorary doctorates
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...
from Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
and Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and joined Harvard as a Charles Eliot Norton
Charles Eliot Norton
Charles Eliot Norton, was a leading American author, social critic, and professor of art. He was a militant idealist, a progressive social reformer, and a liberal activist whom many of his contemporaries considered the most cultivated man in the United States.-Biography:Norton was born at...
professor in 1956. His published writings, including The Biography of Painting (1956) and The Shape of Content (1960), became influential works in the art world.
After his death, William Schuman
William Schuman
William Howard Schuman was an American composer and music administrator.-Life:Born in Manhattan in New York City to Samuel and Rachel Schuman, Schuman was named after the twenty-seventh U.S. president, William Howard Taft, although his family preferred to call him Bill...
composed "In Praise of Shahn", a modern canticle
Canticle
A canticle is a hymn taken from the Bible. The term is often expanded to include ancient non-biblical hymns such as the Te Deum and certain psalms used liturgically.-Roman Catholic Church:From the Old Testament, the Roman Breviary takes seven canticles for use at Lauds, as follows:*...
for orchestra, first performed January 29, 1970, by the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
conducting.
Themes
Ben Shahn’s social-realist vision informed his approach to art. Shahn’s examination of the status quo inspired his creative process. Although he often explored polemic themes of modern urban life, organized labor, immigration and injustice, he did so while maintaining a compassionate tone. Shahn identified himself as a communicative artist. He challenged the esoteric pretensions of art, which he believed disconnect artists’ and their work from the public. As an alternative, he proposed an intimate and mutually beneficial relationship between artist and audience.Shahn defended his choice to employ pictorial realities, rather than abstract forms. According to Shahn, known forms allow the artist “to discover new truths about man and to reaffirm that his life is significant.” References to allegory, the Old Testament, humanistic content, childhood, science, music and the commonplace are other motifs Shahn draws upon to make the universal personal for his viewers. Wit, candor and sentimentality give his images poignancy. By evoking dynamism, Shahn intended to inspire social change. Shahn stressed that in art, as in life, the combination of opposing orders is vital for progress. His hope for a unity among the diverse peoples of the United States relates to his interest in fusing different visual vocabularies.
Style
Shahn mixed different genreGenre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
s of art. His body of art is distinctive for its lack of traditional landscape
Landscape
Landscape comprises the visible features of an area of land, including the physical elements of landforms such as mountains, hills, water bodies such as rivers, lakes, ponds and the sea, living elements of land cover including indigenous vegetation, human elements including different forms of...
s, still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
s, and portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s. Shahn used both expressive and precise visual languages, which he coalesced through the consistency of his authoritative line. His background in lithography
Lithography
Lithography is a method for printing using a stone or a metal plate with a completely smooth surface...
contributed to his detail-oriented look Shahn is also noted for his use of unique symbolism, which is often compared to the imagery in Paul Klee's drawings. While Shahn's "love for exactitude" is apparent in his graphics, so too is his creativity. In fact, many of his paintings are inventive adaptations of his photography.
Evocative juxtapositions characterize his aesthetic. He intentionally paired contrasting scales, colors, and images together to create tension. One signature example is seen in his play between industrial coolness and sympathetic portrayals. Handball demonstrates his "use of architectural settings as both psychological foil to human figures and as expressive abstract pattern."
His art is striking but also introspective. He often captured figures engrossed in their own worlds. Many of his photographs were taken spontaneously, without the subject's notice. Although he used many mediums, his pieces are consistently thoughtful and playful.
Jersey Homesteads Mural
Farm Security Administration
Initially created as the Resettlement Administration in 1935 as part of the New Deal in the United States, the Farm Security Administration was an effort during the Depression to combat American rural poverty...
commissioned Ben Shahn to paint a mural for the community center of Jersey Homesteads
Roosevelt, New Jersey
Roosevelt was originally called Jersey Homesteads, and was created during the Great Depression as part of President Roosevelt's New Deal. The town was home to a cooperative farming and manufacturing project...
(later renamed Roosevelt), a New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
town initially planned to be a community for Jewish garment workers. Shahn's move to the settlement demonstrates his dedication to the project as does his mural's compelling depiction of the town's founding.
Three panels compose the mural. According to art historian Diana L. Linden, the panels' sequence relates to that of the Haggadah
Haggadah of Pesach
The Haggadah is a Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. Reading the Haggadah at the Seder table is a fulfillment of the Scriptural commandment to each Jew to "tell your son" of the Jewish liberation from slavery in Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus in the Torah...
, the Jewish Passover Seder
Passover Seder
The Passover Seder is a Jewish ritual feast that marks the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Passover. It is conducted on the evenings of the 14th day of Nisan in the Hebrew calendar, and on the 15th by traditionally observant Jews living outside Israel. This corresponds to late March or April in...
text which follows a narrative of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, deliverance and redemption. More specifically, Shahn’s mural depicts immigrants' struggle and advancement in the United States.
The first panel shows the antisemitic and xenophobic
Xenophobia
Xenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
obstacles American immigrants faced. During the global Depression, citizens of the United States struggled for their livelihoods. Because foreigners represented competition for employment, they were especially unwelcome. National immigration quotas also reflected the strained foreign relations of the United States at a time when fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, and communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
were on the rise. To illustrate the political and social adversary, Shahn incorporated loaded iconography: Nazi soldiers, anti-Jewish signs and the executed Italian anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti
Sacco and Vanzetti
Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...
. Below, Shahn's mother and Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
lead immigrants on a gangplank situated by the Ellis Island
Ellis Island
Ellis Island in New York Harbor was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States. It was the nation's busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954. The island was greatly expanded with landfill between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the...
registry center and the Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
. This section demonstrates the immigrants' heroic emergence in the United States.
The middle panel describes the poor living conditions awaiting immigrants after their arrival. On the right, Shahn depicts the inhuman labor situation in the form of "lightless sweatshops...tedious and backbreaking work with outmoded tools." The crowd in the center of the composition represents labor unions and workers' reform efforts. Here, a figure resembling labor leader John L. Lewis
John L. Lewis
John Llewellyn Lewis was an American leader of organized labor who served as president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960...
protests in front of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history...
, where a devastating fire occurred and the movement for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) began. The lower right passageway marked ILGWU symbolizes a new and hopeful path, in United States, paved by unionized labor.
In the last panel, the unions and the New Deal unite to create the blueprint
Blueprint
A blueprint is a type of paper-based reproduction usually of a technical drawing, documenting an architecture or an engineering design. More generally, the term "blueprint" has come to be used to refer to any detailed plan....
for the town of the Jersey Homesteads. Various figures of social progress such as Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman
Sidney Hillman was an American labor leader. Head of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, he was a key figure in the founding of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and in marshaling labor's support for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democratic Party.-Early years:Sidney Hillman was...
and Heywood Broun
Heywood Broun
Heywood Campbell Broun, Jr. was an American journalist. He worked as a sportswriter, newspaper columnist, and editor in New York City. He founded the American Newspaper Guild, now known as The Newspaper Guild. Born in Brooklyn, New York, he is best remembered for his writing on social issues and...
gather around the drafting table. Above them are images of the purposed cooperative
Cooperative
A cooperative is a business organization owned and operated by a group of individuals for their mutual benefit...
farm and factory along with a campaign poster of Roosevelt, after whom the town was eventually named.
Shahn’s biographer Soby notes "the composition of the mural at Roosevelt follows the undulant principle Shahn had learned from Diego Rivera
Diego Rivera
Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez was a prominent Mexican painter born in Guanajuato, Guanajuato, an active communist, and husband of Frida Kahlo . His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in...
: deep recession of space alternating with human and architectural details projected forward." Moreover, the montage effectively intimates the amalgamation of peoples and cultures populating the urban landscape in the early twentieth century. Multiple layers and perspectives fuse together to portray a complex industrialized system. Still, the mural maintains a sense of humanity; Shahn gives his figures a monumental quality through volume and scale. The urban architecture does not dwarf the people; instead, they work with the surroundings to build their own structure. Shahn captured the urgency for activism and reform, by showing gestures and mid-steps and freezing all the subjects in motion. This pictorial incorporation of "athletic pose and evocative asymmetry of architectural detail" is a Shahn trademark. While exemplifying his visual and social concerns, the mural characterizes the general issues of Shahn's milieu.
Artworks
- Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco Their Guards,1932, Collection of Miss Patricia Healey http://www.yale.edu/opa/v31.n6/story10.html
- Untitled (Houston Street Playground, New York City), 1932, Fogg Art Museum http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/fogg/photographs.html
- W.C.T.U Parade, 1933-4, Museum of the City of New York http://www.mcny.org/collections/painting/pttmaincat2.htm
- Jersey Homesteads Mural, 1937-38, Community Center of the Federal Housing Development, Roosevelt, New Jersey http://www.njn.net/artsculture/shahn/mural.html
- Still Music, 1938, Philips Collection, Washington DC. http://phillipscollection.org/willo/w/size3/1731w.jpg
- Handball, 1939, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Fund) http://junomain.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/ben-shahn-by-terry-grant/
- The Meaning of Social Mural, 1940-2, Federal Security Building, Washington, DC. http://www.voanews.com/english/About/shahnmural.cfm
- For Full Employment after the War, Register-Vote, 1944, The Museum of Modern Art, New York http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/caption/captionshahn.html
- Allegory, 1948, Bill Bomar Collection http://themodern.fortworth.museum/f_htmlb/shahn_b.html
- Age of Anxiety, 1953, The Joseph H. Hirschhorn Foundation, Inc. http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/01/17/specials/shahn.5.htm
Exhibitions
- “Ben Shahn: Paintings and Drawings,” 1930, Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery in New York, New York
- “57th Annual American Exhibition: Water Colors and Drawings,” 1946, Tate Gallery in London, England
- “Ben Shahn: A Retrospective,” 1947, Museum of Modern Art in New York, New York
- “Esposizione Biennale internationale D’Arte XXVII,” 1954 in Venice, Italy
- “Ben Shahn,” 1962, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium; Galleria Nazionale D’arte Moderna in Rome, Italy; and Albertina in Vienna, Austria.
- “The Collected Prints of Ben Shahn,” 1969, Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania.
- “Ben Shahn: A Retrospective Exhibition, ” 1969, New Jersey State MuseumNew Jersey State MuseumThe New Jersey State Museum is located at 205 West State Street in Trenton, New Jersey, United States, overlooking the Delaware River. The Museum is operated as part of the New Jersey Department of State. General admission is free....
, Trenton, New JerseyTrenton, New JerseyTrenton is the capital of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Trenton had a population of 84,913...
. - “Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times,” 2000-2001, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
External links
- Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work
- Ben Shahn documentary
- Ben Shahn at Harvard
- Columbus Museum of Art More on Father CoughlinCharles CoughlinFather Charles Edward Coughlin was a controversial Roman Catholic priest at Royal Oak, Michigan's National Shrine of the Little Flower church. He was one of the first political leaders to use radio to reach a mass audience, as more than thirty million tuned to his weekly broadcasts during the...
- List of AIGA medalists
- Photographs of Ben Shahn and Louis Wickes Hine, from the Library of Congress
- Shahn poster
- Ben Shahn mural at Woodhaven, Queens post office
