BEN SHAHN

Menorah
the frontispiece of Ben Shahn's Haggadah

One of America's most notable social realists, Ben Shahn, b. Lithuania, Sept. 12 (N.S.), 1898, d. Mar. 14, 1969, established his personal style in his series of paintings (1931-32) inspired by the political sentiments aroused by the Sacco-Vanzetti case. Although he had worked in lithography since 1913, those paintings brought Shahn his first great success and are still, perhaps, his best-known achievement. Combining the precision of commercial lithography with the manipulation of color, form, and perspective he had admired in modern European painting, Shahn developed a unique approach that he often placed at the service of liberal causes. In the early 1930s, while assisting Diego Rivera, he became interested in mural painting; it was also during this period that he took up photography. In the 1940s, moved by the plight of wartime Europe, Shahn devoted a series of paintings to this tragedy. Toward the end of his life, Shahn's work became less topical and more abstract, as in a series of works with African themes.

Home
E-Mail comments to Werner S. Hirsch
Updated July 22, 1998 11:09 AM