Ben Shahn

The exhibition catalogue, Ben Shahn. On Nonconformity, proposes a fresh and wide-ranging look at U.S. artist Ben Shahn (1898–1969) on the 125th anniversary of his birth. The book analyzes the work of Shahn—a Jewish immigrant from Russian-controlled Lithuania—and his endurance as one of the most prominent, prolific, and progressive of the “social viewpoint” artists in the United States from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War era.

The core essay argues for the strong relevance of Shahn’s art today, critically examining the artist’s commitment to social justice causes, from combating fascism to fighting for civil rights. Additional essays address his World War II poster art, labor-related work, and engagement in postwar aesthetic debates. Drawing on media studies, cultural studies, and museological approaches, the catalogue brings new insights to Shahn’s social realist and documentary styles and their evolution into allegorical, lyrical, and often abstracted idioms that embrace the philosophical and the spiritual.

This richly illustrated publication equally demonstrates the underappreciated complexity of Shahn’s layered visual language and his experimentation with modernist conceptual strategies—often involving his multifaceted use of photography—to create his paintings, murals, drawings, prints, posters, illustrated books, and commercial designs.