Ben Shahn was born in 1898 in Kaunus, Lithuania. He moved to New York with his family in 1906. After school, he worked for a lithographer. He studied art at New York University and the National Academy of Design.

Regarding his time in school, Shahn said this: “Art, as I saw it one day when I helped hang a National Academy show while I was a student there, was about cows. In those days, early in the twenties, there were many cow paintings. More than that, the cows always stood knee-deep in purple shadows. For the life of me I never learned to see purple where there was no purple — and I detested cows. I was frankly distressed at the prospects for me as an artist.

“But there came a time when I stopped painting, stopped in order to evaluate all these doubts. If I couldn’t see purple where there was no purple–I wouldn’t use it. If I didn’t like cows, I wouldn’t paint them. What then was I to paint? Slowly I found that I must paint those things that were meaningful to me–that I could honestly paint in the shapes and colors I felt belonged to them. What shall I paint? Stories.”

Ben Shahn became a Social Realist when he was in his twenties. Social Realists were artists who used their work to show how people lived and often suffered in real life. Ben Shahn was inspired by news reports. He became famous for his drawings about the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti.

During the Great Depression, a worldwide economic crisis; Shahn worked as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration. The government sent him across the country to take pictures. Shahn was a very shy man but he built a special camera so he could take pictures without asking permission. It was a dream job for the artist. Years later, he used those photographs to make paintings. Some people said that drawing from photographs wasn’t really art. Shahn became the most popular artist of his age though. His work was on the cover of Time and was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art.

Ben Shahn passed away in 1969. He is remembered 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. He was active until the end of his career. Shahn was also a distinguished lecturer, teacher, and writer.

Portrait by yours truly.