Ben Shahn (1898-1969)

Perhaps the most prolific and important of the socially conscious artists of the New Deal era, Ben Shahn addressed timely issues such as unemployment, poverty, immigration, and social reform and their connection to race, religion and class. A painter, photographer, printmaker and political activist, Shahn expressed himself through several media throughout his career. Beginning in 1932, he began taking street photographs that defined life in New York City through the activities and lives of ordinary people. Drawn to the human dimensions of the city's impoverished districts, he created intimate and relevant portraits in his snapshots of local residents. These photographs often formed the basis of inspiration for his paintings, as seen in the present grouping.

"Hamilton Fish Park, painted from a composite of two Shahn photographs, underlines how the artist's earliest photographs provided him with a fundamental means of interpreting urban life in modern times and shaped a highly influential documentary aesthetic that would influence and characterize his work for decades. Compelling examples of social realist art in their own right, these two photographs are examples of the almost collage-like technique Shahn often used when making a painting. Shahn continued to utilize photography in his art throughout his career, for both compositions and content. In doing so Shahn was able to encapsulate Depression-era America through pictures that 'cried out to be taken.'" (Boca Raton Museum of Art, American Modernism: Paintings from the Dr. and Mrs. Mark S. Kauffman Collection, exhibition catalogue, Boca Raton, Florida, 2003, p. 56)

The present work is being sold with two vintage gelatin silver prints by Ben Shahn. Each are approximately 6 x 9 in. (15.2 x 22.9 cm.) and bear the signature of Mrs. Shahn and date of '1934' on the reverse.