 |
Ben Shahn
[Lithuanian-born American Social Realist Painter and Photographer, 1898-1969]
|
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, quoted by Katherine Kuh (found at Constable.net) |
Commercial Galleries: Galleries: We invite you to register and list your site (no charge for this service)
Original works by Ben Shahn available for purchase at art galleries worldwide
Museums and Public Art Galleries:
 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
5 works by Ben Shahn
Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts
7,000 works from the Harvard database
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
8 works online
Metropolitan Museum of Art Timetable of Art History, New York City
Ben Shahn at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
2 works by Ben Shahn
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Works from the Kenneth Tyler Collection of international prints
New York Public Library Digital Gallery
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.
4 works online
U.S. Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
Over 1,000 photographs by Ben Shahn, created for the U.S. Farm Security Administration
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts
Amarillo Museum of Art, Texas
The Wife and Child of Sharecropper, 1935
Amarillo Museum of Art, Texas
Picking Cotton, Pulaski County, Arkansas, October 1935
Amon Carter Museum, Texas
World's Greatest Comics
Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Illinois
Four Tunisian Soldiers, watercolor, 1938
Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences, Charleston, West Virginia
Currier Gallery of Art, New Hampshire
Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma
Renascence
Grey Art Gallery at New York University
Ben Shahn's New York
Guilford College Art Gallery, North Carolina
Note that the JPG image for "Michael Schwerner" is displayed smaller than its actual size
Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts
Stop H Bomb Tests, 1960
Hofstra University Museum, Hempstead, New York
Flash slideshow; Click "Works on Paper" and navigate to work #31
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Scorn, 1952
Ben Shahn in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Database
Maier Museum of Art at Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Virginia
(Note: Click the title to view the artwork details, not the thumbnail image.)
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas
Montclair Art Museum, New Jersey
Three Witnesses
Museum of the City of New York
Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York
Sunday Painting, 1938
Ben Shahn at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Gemini G.E.L. prints
Ben Shahn at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, drawing, 1954
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma
To Roads in Unknown Regions, 1968
San Diego Museum of Art, California
Requires Flash: Click on "Artist Index", then on "S"
Sheldon Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska
Trouble
Ben Shahn at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
Tate Gallery, London, UK
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid NEW!
- to switch to English, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "English Version"
- images are zoomable; click on the "expand" icon below the detail image
- you can zoom in via the mouse scroll wheel, then click the image and drag it around
University of Delaware Museums
Study for mural, 1955-57
University of Kentucky Art Museum
Farmers
Walker Art Center, Minnesota
Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas NEW!
The Blind Botanist, 1954
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas NEW!
Untitled, Study for Rikers Island Penitentiary Mural, 1934-35
Williams College Museum of Art, Massachusetts
Portrait of Walker Evans, 1931
Smithsonian Institution Art Inventories
List of works nationwide from two sources: the Inventory of American Paintings Executed before 1914 and the Inventory of American Sculpture (only a few percent of listings have an accompanying image)
Pictures from Image Archives:
Bildindex der Kunst und Architektur (in German) 
(a welcome screen is displayed for a couple of seconds before the search results appear)
California State University WorldImages Database
Ciudad de la Pintura (in Spanish)
University of Michigan SILS Art Image Browser
USC Annenberg School for Communication
Other Web Sites:
Mistica info (in Italian)
Menorah, 1965
PBS
Information from the documentary Ben Shahn: Passion for Justice
Photography @ Temple University Online
Time Magazine Cover Archive
Martin Luther King, 1965
Time Magazine Cover Archive
Johann Sebastian Bach, 1968
Articles:
Encyclopedia Britannica complete article on Ben Shahn
Note: The full version of the article is available only if you follow this link. If you bookmark the article and return later, or if you navigate directly to the Britannica website, you will see a 75-word preview only. Troubleshooting
Union List of Artist Names (Getty Museum)
Reference sheet with basic information about the artist and pointers to other references.
Resource Library Magazine
Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times
Resource Library Magazine
Common Man, Mythic Vision: The Paintings of Ben Shahn
Spartacus Educational Books
War Artists of W.W.I.
|
|
|
|
|
zoom
