Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn in his studio, 1965
Gift of Kenneth Tyler 2002
Photographer: Unknown Photographer
Ben Shahn was born in Lithuania in 1898. Following the persecution of his father for anti-tsarist activities, the family immigrated to America in 1904. After finishing school, Shahn attended night classes at the National Academy of Design while apprenticed to a commercial lithographer’s studio. In time he managed to attend classes at both the Art Students League and New York University, and travelled to Europe in 1925 and again in 1927. The influence of his family’s strong social conscience permeated all aspects of Shahn’s life and art. In the early 1930s his socialist paintings came to the attention of Diego Rivera, who was in New York painting his Rockefeller Centre murals. Shahn was invited to be his assistant. After learning the techniques of mural painting from Rivera, the medium became a prominent feature of Shahn’s oeuvre.
Shahn also worked with photography, and the National Gallery holds a large collection of his work in this area. The techniques he learnt as an apprentice lithographer were utilised during World War II when he worked on a commission for the American Office of War Information to design posters, an example of which, This is Nazi brutality, is in the National Gallery’s collection. Shahn worked at Gemini GEL in 1966 to create the lithograph Levana. A reference to the Roman goddess of newborn babies, the work is a simple black line evocation of the tender bond that exists between mother and child; a further example of Shahn’s concern with the human condition.
Emilie Owens
Chronology
1898 Born in Kovno, Lithuania
1913 Apprenticeship at Hessenberg’s Lithography Shop, New York
1919-22 Attends New York University and City College of New York, New York
1922 Extensive travels through Africa, Spain, Italy, Austria, Holland and France, after which he settles in Paris
1926 Returns to United States for a year before returning to Paris, France
1930 First solo exhibition, Paintings and drawings of Ben Shahn, The Downtown Gallery, New York
1932 Included in exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, New York; included in exhibition, Whitney biennale, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
1935 Employed by Resettlement Administration to document poverty in South and Midwest, United States of America
1942-44 Designs posters for the Office of War Information, Washington, DC
1946 Included in exhibition: Watercolor-USA, organised by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
1947 Solo exhibition, Ben Shahn, at Museum of Modern Art, New York
1950 Teaches at University of Colorado, Boulder
1951 Teaches at Brooklyn Museum School, New York and Black Mountain College, Connecticut. Included in exhibitions Biennial of São-Paulo, Brazil
1954 Included in exhibitions: Annual exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Venice biennale, Italy
1956 Receives Joseph E. Temple Award, from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Teaches at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Solo exhibition, The art of Ben Shahn, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge Designs set for the ballet, New York export- opus jazz
1957 Publishes writings The shape of content (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957)
1959 Included in exhibition, Annual exhibition, Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
1961 Included in exhibition, Posters against Nazism, Galleria dell’obelisco, Rome; travelling solo exhibition, The works of Ben Shahn, organised by the International Council of Museum of Modern Art, New York
1962 Travelling solo exhibition, Ben Shahn graphics, organised by the International Council of Museum of Modern Art, New York
1966 Completes edition of the lithograph Lavina, at Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles
1967 Solo exhibition, The collected prints of Ben Shahn, at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania
1969 Solo exhibition, Ben Shahn: a retrospective exhibition, organised by New Jersey State Museum, Trenton. Ben Shahn died in New York, New York
Kate Buckingham, 2006
This chronology provides an overview of selected biographical information, major solo and group exhibitions held within the artist's own lifetime. It draws from the excellent biographical information published in K. Prescott, Prints and posters of Ben Shahn (New York: Dover Publications, 1982)
Further Reading
NATIONAL GALLERY PUBLICATIONS
- Workshop: The Kenneth Tyler Collection, Jane Kinsman (ed.), 2015
Related
The Documentary Conscience
Lewis Hine and the Farm Security Administration
25 Aug 1984 - 21 Oct 1984
The Artist and the Printer
29 Nov 1986 - 10 May 1987
