Art That Expresses the Hardship of Not Being White

"If I am to be a painter I must show the earth how information technology looks through my eyes, not theirs."

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"All fine art is based upon nonconformity."

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"Fine art is notwithstanding the citadel of the private."

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"Those who take it upon themselves to minister to the human being spirit shall themselves be moved primarily by things of the spirit."

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"I hate injustice; I guess that's most the just thing I really do hate."

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"To me, propaganda is a holy word."

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"Painting can get, and has become for me, a style of life, so that inevitably I can express almost anything I feel better in that medium than any other medium."

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"I institute I could say what I wanted to say much more effectively in a drawing or a painting."

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Summary of Ben Shahn

Ben Shahn'south desire to create narrative art that focuses on social and political justice have come up to exemplify Social Realism and the fine art of social consciousness. From his questioning religious teachings as a youth in Lithuania and up through the terminate of his life, Shahn remained truthful to his vision. He never failed to create artwork to draw attention to those for whom life was a struggle, and did then with nobility rather than pathos or sentimentality.

Accomplishments

• Prior to World State of war Two, Shahn was a lead practitioner of what has come to exist called Social Realism. Such art works are narrative, figurative, and illustrative of the poor, oppressed, or those who live at the margins of club. The guiding spirit of Social Realism is a commitment to humanism.
• Ben Shahn brought together different forms of visual civilization to break down the barrier between mass media and fine fine art. In opposition to what Shahn called "the rules for pure art," the artist consistently inserted words, texts, and quotations into his artwork to emphasize the didactic nature of his art.
• Because of Shahn's apprenticeship and friendship with Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, and other prominent artists, he upheld the supremacy and universality of art over the false boundaries of nation states. Through his work with Rivera, Shahn serves as a conduit between the United States and the arts of Mexico which were all the rage in the 1920s and 1930s, merely fell out of favor until its revival in the 1980s.
• Despite his rise in fame and prestige, Shahn remained committed to his audition and bailiwick matter. Shahn never spoke down to the American people, rather he stood amongst the oversupply and fought the same fights equally they did.

Biography of Ben Shahn

Born into an Orthodox Jewish family, Shahn witnessed both anti-Semitism and political persecution during his babyhood in Lithuania. The Tsar's forces arrested Shahn'due south socialist father and imprisoned him in Siberia. As a young boy, Shahn began to take a stand against social injustice, a moral stance that would ascertain his life'due south work. While equally a youth studying the Bible, he accused God of acting unjustly when he struck a man dead who had disobeyed his command in the story of the building of Solomon'due south Temple. Initially, Shahn refused to return to religious school until the instructor would acknowledge this injustice; later, he only returned considering of the urging of his dear grandfather. In 1906, when Shahn was 8 years old, his family immigrated to New York and reunited with his male parent who had long since escaped and settled in Brooklyn. The year 1906 was the pinnacle year of Eastern-European Jewish migration to America and so Shahn'south is very much an immigrant's story. While a child dorsum in Lithuania, Shahn offset became interested in art; but, every bit resources were deficient, he had to draw on the pages of his books.

Of import Art past Ben Shahn

Progression of Art

1931-32

The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti

This is the only easel painting out of Ben Shahn's series of twenty-three gouaches depicting elements of the trial and subsequent execution of the two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti who were accused of murder during a robbery in Massachusetts. At the time and still today, controversy surrounds the guilty verdict, with many believing that the men were condemned because they were anarchists and because of the overt anti-immigrant sentiments of the era. In this painting, the iii members of the Lowell Committee who denied the defendants' appeal concord lilies as they stand over open coffins containing the bodies of Sacco and Vanzetti. Judge Thayer tin be seen in the background staring out the courthouse window onto the scene.

Shahn submitted this easel painting to an exhibition organized by Lincoln Kirstein at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The museum's Board of Trustees objected to Shahn's depiction of the Lowell Committee members who were friends to many of the museum'southward trustees. Despite the Board's demand that Shahn'south works along with the equally objectionable works past Hugo Gellert and William Gropper not be shown, the many other artists in the exhibition and the curator Kirstein refused to participate if the three artists were banned. The show somewhen moved forward including Shahn's work with many of the trustees resigning in anger.

The painting's topic provides an early on example of Shahn's use of his art confronting social injustice. This piece of work helped to establish him as one of the peachy Social Realist painters. Also in the evolution of this artwork, Shahn had begun to think sequentially most narration through art, a procedure which ultimately led him to pigment his complex public murals. Rather than painting for himself as other modernists did, Shahn painted for the public and for the crusade of Sacco and Vanzetti, while simultaneously drawing upon the cubistic forms of Picasso in his figures. Shahn successfully melds together the formal with the political in this work.

Tempera on canvas - Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

1936-38

Untitled: Jersey Homesteads Mural

Ben Shahn's 45 foot long x 12 anxiety high Jersey Homesteads Landscape recounts the grand narrative of the Jewish exodus to the United States (1880- 1924), the Jews' quest for a decent livelihood in the punishing sweat shops of the unregulated garment trade, and the importance of Jewish labor unions. The left panel begins in 1930s Germany where a Nazi soldier holds a sign alert Germans not to purchase anything from Jews; this threatening image by Shahn was the only reference to Nazi Germany in whatsoever New Bargain landscape. Two women seen mourning at open caskets which contain Sacco and Vanzetti are positioned to a higher place a depiction of the registry hall at Ellis Island where the Statute of Liberty is visible through an open up doorway. A group of immigrants walking off a transport include representations of Shahn'southward mother, artist Raphael Soyer, and Albert Einstein who leads the group and who was on the lath of Jersey Homesteads. The center panel depicts Jews and other immigrants working in a non-union, unsafe sweatshop. Shahn, a champion of unions, side by side painted an paradigm which closely resembled President of the CIO John J. Lewis simply is not to be taken literally as a portrait. The labor organizer presents a voice communication and quotes one by Lewis: "1 of the bang-up principles for which labor and America must stand up in the hereafter is the right of every human and woman to accept a job, to earn their living if they are willing to piece of work." Shahn concludes the narrative with the right panel with a happier life in Jersey Homesteads housing development. References to the importance of unions, is made past a sign on the development's entrance reading "ILGWU," continuing for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. In the final scene, a group portrait of the Jewish garment union leaders, along with New York Senator Robert F. Wagner who was instrumental in the cosmos of labor-reform laws, look over the blueprints for Jersey Homesteads.

Shahn received this mural commission from the Us Resettlement Administration's new 200 dwelling house development Bailiwick of jersey Homesteads projection that was created to provide housing, work, and farming opportunities for Jewish garment workers wanting to relocate from New York City and Philadelphia; many had lost their jobs due to the devastation of the Groovy Depression. This expansive and detailed mural reveals Shahn'due south commitment to improving the human being status through narrative storytelling, and his smashing skill at creating complex compositions.

Fresco - Collection of Roosevelt Public Schoolhouse, New Jersey

1938-39

Resources of America

Resources of America (1938-39) is a commissioned mural Ben Shahn completed for the Bronx Cardinal Post Office in New York City. His companion Bernarda Bryson served every bit his banana on the projection. The New Bargain Program'south Treasury Section of Painting and Sculpture, whose purpose was to oversee the commission of the best fine art possible for new federal buildings, selected Shahn's as the winning design. For example, one of the 13 panels portrays both an agronomical and an industrial worker, displaying 1 man stooping downward low to pick cotton wool, and a woman working at spindles in a mill. The central console which is placed on a higher plane than the other panel depicts American poet Walt Whitman speaking to an assembled group of workers and pointing to a text-filled blackboard. His long, white beard makes the poet resemble a combination of Moses and Karl Marx.

Although not intending to be controversial, the Bronx mural did indeed elicit harsh criticism due to Shahn's inclusion of a quote by Whitman who was so on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books. Originally Shahn planned to include text from Whitman's verse form "One thousand Female parent with Thy Equal Blood" only when preliminary sketches of the mural were displayed at the Bronx Post Office, a local priest took notice. Shortly after, Reverend Ignatius W. Cox, an ideals professor at Fordham University, publicly denounced the mural in front of thousands gathered in a church as being a government statement against faith. Cox urged parishioners to join him in demanding the text be changed, and began a letter-writing campaign which garnered much printing coverage. Equally, Shahn had agreed when taking the job to make changes if there were any objections, he switched the text to lines from Whitman's poem "As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days." Despite the successful reception to the altered landscape, the feel fabricated clear to the artist the weight of censorship and the power that even a few members of the public could exert over an creative person's work.

Egg tempera applied to plaster - Collection of Bronx Cardinal Mail Office, New York

1942

This is Nazi Brutality

In the early 1940s, Ben Shahn created paintings which became the basis of anti-war posters sponsored past the United States government. Shahn's This is Nazi Brutality is one of the most famous posters he designed during his position at the Part of State of war Information (OWI). In response to the Nazis full destruction of the town of Lidice, Czechoslovakia, and its inhabitants, Shahn's powerful prototype features a male figure whose caput is covered by a hood and whose fisted easily, positioned firmly at his sides, are shackled. He stands below a dark and ominous sky and is backed both from behind and on his left side by a carmine brick wall. The title of the piece of work as well as its theme are stated in assuming cherry messages in front of the figure below which, the news of the outcome, as it was translated from a radio broadcast. The text reads: RADIO BERLIN.--IT IS OFFICIALLY Appear: -ALL MEN OF LIDICE - CZECHOSLOVAKIA - Take BEEN SHOT: THE WOMEN DEPORTED TO A CONCENTRATION Campsite: THE CHILDREN SENT TO APPROPRIATE CENTERS--THE Proper noun OF THE VILLAGE WAS IMMEDIATELY ABOLISHED. 6/11/42/115P. Astonishingly, the OWI officials rejected Shahn'south designs as also "trigger-happy" and "not highly-seasoned enough." Fed up with such disagreements, Shahn resigned after ane yr. Shahn'southward confrontational posture towards officials conveys a smashing strength of conviction in his topics.

Through the means of bold, graphic design, using an economy of words, coupled with an image freed from the types of details that typify Shahn'due south figural words, the reaction to this haunting piece of work is powerful and viscerally felt.

Outset lithograph - Art Institute of Chicago

1944

The Cherry-red Stairway

Ben Shahn's The Ruby-red Stairway is a powerful argument on destruction, hope, and the prevailing human spirit. An elderly human, wearing a black coat and lid, reliant on crutches, ascends a carmine staircase that winds upwards and so down the side of a ravaged edifice. In the correct foreground, some other man in a white shirt is rise upwards out of a crater carrying a basket of rubble.

As with many artists of his era, the horrors of Globe War II had a profound effect on Shahn and his work. In this and other paintings he chose to draw the devastation of the war symbolically, rather than as realistically or in a documentary vein. Here the human being's journey upwardly the stairs seems overwhelmingly arduous (every bit he is missing a leg) and is seemingly leading nowhere. This lack of hope echoes the oppressive weight of the effects of state of war and even so, Shahn is conscientious to also imbue the work with a sense of promise in the fact that the man attempts the journey at all. The other figure clears the debris and symbolizes Europe's own efforts to climb out of the destruction and metaphorically echoes the efforts of people to rebuild after the damages of the war. Fifty-fifty the blueish cloud-filled sky is a flake lighter above this figure symbolizing the promised gift of another twenty-four hours that comes with each new dawn.

This painting is a cardinal example of a major shift in Shahn'due south piece of work in the postwar flow. Prior to the state of war much of his focus had been on creating works of Social Realism only the war led Shahn to motility his fine art towards the direction of a more "personal realism" resulting in works which offered the artist's own subjective response and feelings to the globe around him. While his works became more than emotional, different many artists of the period, Shahn still maintained a highly narrative and figurative style.

Tempera on Masonite - Saint Louis Art Museum

1946

We Desire Peace, Annals to Vote

Throughout his career, Ben Shahn created numerous political posters; this work is an splendid case of the artist'south graphic style. A powerfully stark image, the work depicts a gaunt young boy wearing dark pants, suspenders, and a red shirt with his right hand outstretched into the foreground in a pose of begging. His hollow, dark optics look slightly downwards preventing the viewer from a direct connection to his epitome. The purpose of the affiche is fabricated articulate in the uncomplicated text which states: "Nosotros want Peace" and "REGISTER VOTE."

Shahn first joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations' Political Action group in guild to reelect President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After FDR'south 1944 victory, Shahn became the CIO-PAC's managing director of the Graphic Arts Sectionalisation. During this fourth dimension he designed many posters to encourage Americans to become out the vote and to support the Autonomous Party. Shahn'due south mastery in communicating his message is achieved past capturing emotions and the homo spirit on the canvas as is the example with this work; such as the child's haunting eyes as he begs for a amend tomorrow that can be achieved through the ability of voting.

Shahn had a productive career as a commercial artist and illustrator, and felt there was an importance to being what he called a "communicative artist" and saw the power that reproducible works such as posters have in reaching a much larger and more diverse audience than that of a painting. Artist Andy Warhol is one who spoke of the great influence Shahn's illustrations had upon his own work.

Color lithograph affiche - Collection of de Young | Legion of Laurels, San Francisco, California

1948

Apologue

Ben Shahn's painting Apologue features a scarlet creature with both wolf and king of beasts characteristics and flaming mane standing over a pile of 4 dead children's bodies. Neither the beast nor the bodies are anchored to annihilation rather they seem to float in a void of blue, red, and purple colors. In the left corner, a subtle hint of yellow seems to struggle through, echoing that of a sun behind clouds and; in the lower left corner of the canvass, Shahn depicts a group of bare red trees against a modest patch of green background.

Shahn maintained that the inspiration for the painting was the story of a Chicago homo, John Hickman who after his four children died in a tenement fire, killed the building's landlord who he believed was responsible for its offset and received two years' probation afterward a manslaughter conviction. Shahn was commissioned to illustrate an article nigh the instance for a Harper'south mag article in 1948. Later on the job ended and still thinking near the story, Shahn chose to explore the theme further on canvas. When the painting was get-go exhibited in 1948 it received some negative criticism including from The New York Dominicus's critic Henry McBride who maintained that the painting conveyed an anti-American sentiment and was paying homage to the Soviet Union. To McBride, the work was clearly communist since the animal was painted scarlet. Shahn denied McBride'southward interpretation and maintained that the critic was erroneously misreading the painting.

As with many of his works from the mid-1940s on, Shahn also included many personal references such as the fire which dates back to his babyhood. As a youth in Lithuania, Shahn watched his Grandfather'south village burn to the ground, and later repeated the experience in Brooklyn, when his begetter rescued him and his siblings from a business firm fire which destroyed all their possessions, lost their financial stability, and ended upwards injuring his father. Wolves as well had a personal association as his female parent had told him stories of her existence pursued past wolves while living in Russia. Highly symbolic, the work typifies Shahn'southward use of mythology and allegory to create his visual narratives.

Working in a more contemporary, expressive style, Shahn proves that both personal events, also equally tragic emotions, remain pertinent to modernistic art. While always exploring new forms and designs, Shahn always united these pictorial elements with deep narrative expressions.

Tempera on panel - Mod Art Museum of Fort Worth

1948

Miners' Wives

Ben Shahn was a union member, and remained committed to telling the stories, and the hardships of workers and laborers throughout his lengthy career. Shahn imbues Miners' Wives with a haunting sense of sadness. The artist depicted 3 figures in front of a red brick wall. The main focus, however, is the woman at right in the foreground, wrapped in a thin shawl, continuing with arms clasped in front of her. Behind her another woman sits with a pocket-sized kid in her lap while above her a man's jacket and pants hang on a claw on the wall. In the background, visible through a rectangular doorway in the wall, two male figures in blackness coats and hats stand facing a building some distance backside them. The theme of the painting appears to be waiting for news of their husbands', miners, fates.

Shahn oftentimes drew inspiration for paintings from illustrations he had made for articles. The thought for this and five other paintings on this topic came from illustrations he was deputed to create for a Harper'southward magazine article about the Centralia, Illinois mine disaster that killed 111 miners. The article was published in March 1948, and titled "The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A Mine Disaster No One Stopped." Long later its publication, the fate of the miners and their families stayed with Shahn; he felt compelled to employ his art to further their story. In this painting, Shahn concentrates on the wives' desperation as they wait endless hours for their husbands to render habitation, and and so, depicts the harsh reality of their lives as widows. The 2 men in the distance, while ambiguous, peradventure represent the messengers of this tragic news.

The topic of mines was familiar to Shahn as he himself had gone into mines earlier and his second married woman grew upward in a mining area. Further, Shahn was a lifelong supporter of laborers and unions, such as the United Mine Workers Union. Possessing a personal connection to the subject, this painting demonstrates Shahn'south expertise as a figurative, realist artist, mastery at creating works that emotionally continued with viewers and his power to capture the stories of important electric current events.

Egg tempera on board - Philadelphia Museum of Art

1960

We Did Not Know What Happened to United states

This is one of a series of works by Ben Shahn collectively known every bit the Lucky Dragon paintings. The series includes some of the most profound and darkest imagery that Shahn always created. At the top center of the sheet, a beastly face with mouth open and teeth bared is looking out towards the viewer with multiple clawed arms and feet barely visible in a tangled swirl of white cloud-like lines amid a body of water of black. Below the creature, ii figures are visible from the waist up, arms outstretched as the effigy on the left tries to encompass his oral fissure with one arm.

Shahn's prolific career as an illustrator often provided inspiration for his paintings every bit was the case with this work. In 1957, Shahn was commissioned to illustrate a series of manufactures for Harper'south magazine about the crew of the Japanese fishing boat the Lucky Dragon who were trapped in a shower of radioactive debris on March i, 1954 - afterward America tested a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Body of water. All twenty-iii members of the crew suffered the effects of radiation poisoning with one member dying after a long menstruation of suffering.

Shahn was very troubled by the story and its grave injustice. The artist was a strong peace advocate who denounced nuclear weapons. Wanting to brand a strong statement opposing nuclear weapons, the series of paintings he created consisted of eleven works depicting the tragic event and the aftermath. This particular painting focuses on the nuclear blast itself which is portrayed equally a violent creature amidst clouds of lethal poison. Well received when exhibited and fifty-fifty reproduced as a book, the Lucky Dragon series demonstrates that while Shahn had a versatile and rich career, he never strayed far from his political ethics and his strong sense of ethics. Created late in his life, the work was part of the final serial of Shahn'due south career. Rather than overt agitprop fine art, or loud social protest fine art, Shahn softens his style and message in gild to allow the tragedy speak direct to viewers. His is a quiet emotionalism non e'er conveyed through contemporary art.

Tempera on wood - Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

1965

Andrew Goodman

Function of the Human Relations Portfolio serial, Ben Shahn drew images that paid homage to slain ceremonious rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner who were murdered past the Ku Klux Klan in 1964. Using a spare, calligraphic line which emphasizes Goodman's youthful facial features, all of the 3 works draw the men in traditional, somber bosom portrait. The elementary elegance of each work is achieved in part by the lack of color, with Shahn choosing to return each figure only in black lines. The simplicity of Shahn's line and decision to work with outline when delineating the three men, serve to quell the heat and acrimony of the Civil Rights struggle. The piece of work emits a sense of tranquillity that invites reflection; the image, although addressing expiry, speaks likewise to peace.

Screenprint on newspaper - The Jewish Museum, New York

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Content compiled and written by The Art Story Contributors

Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Diana Linden

"Ben Shahn Artist Overview and Assay". [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org
Content compiled and written past The Art Story Contributors
Edited and revised, with Summary and Accomplishments added by Diana Linden
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First published on 07 Jun 2016. Updated and modified regularly
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