The photographer, Ben Shahn was born in Lithuania in 1898. His family emigrated to New York in 1906 and he became a lithographer's apprentice after completing his schooling. He later attended both New York University and the National Academy of Design from 1917 to 1921.

After traveling through Europe in the mid-twenties to learn the European style, Shahn found himself dissatisfied with the work he had seen. In looking for his own style, Shahn redirected his efforts toward a realist style which he used to contribute to social dialogue. The 23 paintings he did of the trials of Sacco and Vanzetti communicated the realistic political concerns of his time. His work was called The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti and was exhibited in 1932 and received acclaim from both the public and critics. This and his other work established his reputation as a leading artist in the social realist movement.

From 1933 to 1938 he worked as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration(FSA), producing masterful images of impoverished rural areas and their inhabitants. Shahn used photographs throughout his career for both composition and content. The photographer position at the FSA was a dream job for Shahn because it provided him the opportunity to travel though Depression-era America taking pictures. He later used those photographs in his later painting years. Critics in his time felt that using photographs for paintings diminished the value of a painting. However, Ben Shahn's artistic work was such that he became the most popular artist of his age. His work was on the cover of Time and well as in the Museum of Modern Art.

Shahn has been described as a man of uncompromising beliefs and an artist who spoke to the world. Shahn continuously adopted new themes and mediums to define the human condition of his time. Active until the end of his career, Shahn was also a distinguished lecturer, teacher, and writer.

Shahn's concern was for the individual. The individual was also the chief focus of the Resettlement Administration and FSA programs. The essential significance of the agencies' programs resided, historian Sidney Baldwin has written, not in their effect on the agricultural marketplace, but rather "in the human condition of the people served and on the lives of the rural communities in which they operated." The spirit of Ben Shahn's photographs perfectly fits the spirit of the agency.

For more images by Ben Shahn, click on "Photographs of Ben Shahn" below

Medium : 1 nitrate negative

Created/Published : August, 1935

Creator : Ben Shahn, photographer, 1898 - 1969

Part of the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress

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Product #: fsa8a18478