Shahn, Ben (Benjamin Shahn), 1898–1969, American painter and graphic artist, b. Lithuania. Shahn emigrated to the United States in 1906. After working in lithography until 1930, his style crystallized in a series of 23 paintings concerning the Sacco-Vanzetti trial, among them The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti (Whitney Mus., New York City). Shahn dealt consistently with social and political themes. He developed a strong and brilliant sense of graphic design revealed in numerous posters. His painting Vacant Lot (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn.) exhibits a poetic realism, whereas his more abstract works are characterized by terse, incisive lines and a lyric intensity of color. The Blind Botanist (Wichita Art Mus.) is characteristic of his abstractions. Shahn's murals include a series for the Bronx Central Annex Post Office, New York City. From 1933 to 1938 he worked as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration, producing masterful images of impoverished rural areas and their inhabitants. Shahn's later works are concerned with the loneliness of the city dweller.
(born Sept. 12, 1898, Kaunas, Russia—died March 14, 1969, New York, N.Y., U.S.) Lithuanian-born U.S. painter and graphic artist. His family immigrated to New York City in 1906. As a youth he worked as a lithographer's apprentice; he later attended New York University and the National Academy of Design. In 1931–33 he achieved fame with a series of gouache paintings inspired by the Sacco-Vanzetti case, combining realism and abstraction in the service of sharp sociopolitical comment. In 1933 he assisted Diego Rivera with his Rockefeller Center mural and worked for the Public Works of Art Project. In 1935–38 he depicted rural poverty while working as an artist and photographer for the Farm Security Administration. After World War II he concentrated on easel painting, poster design, and book illustration.
Shahn, Ben (Benjamin) (1898–1969) painter, photographer, graphic artist; born in Kaunas, Lithuania. He emigrated with his parents to New York (1906), was a lithographer (1913–30), and studied at the National Academy of Design (1922). After study in Europe (1925–27), he became an activist painter in New York. A sequence of 23 gouaches based on the Sacco-Vanzetti case (1931–32) that ended in the execution of two political anarchists, and his series on the trial of labor leader Tom Mooney (1933), established his reputation. His style was semiabstract and boldly colored, and his posters for activist causes reflect his paintings. As a photographer he recorded the lives of farm workers for the Farm Security Administration (1935–38).
Bibliography
See his writings, ed. by J. D. Morse (1972); biographies by his wife, B. B. Shahn (1972), and H. Greenfeld (1998); studies by J. T. Soby (1947 and 1957); K. W. Prescott, The Complete Graphic Works of Ben Shahn (1973).
Shahn, Ben(jamin)
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Ben Shahn, 1966.
(credit: © Karsh from Rapho/Photo Researchers—EB Inc.)
Shahn, Ben (Benjamin) (1898–1969) painter, photographer, graphic artist; born in Kaunas, Lithuania. He emigrated with his parents to New York (1906), was a lithographer (1913–30), and studied at the National Academy of Design (1922). After study in Europe (1925–27), he became an activist painter in New York. A sequence of 23 gouaches based on the Sacco-Vanzetti case (1931–32) that ended in the execution of two political anarchists, and his series on the trial of labor leader Tom Mooney (1933), established his reputation. His style was semiabstract and boldly colored, and his posters for activist causes reflect his paintings. As a photographer he recorded the lives of farm workers for the Farm Security Administration (1935–38).
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