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Ben Shahn
[Lithuanian-born American Social Realist Painter and Photographer, 1898-1969]
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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) |
Ben Shahn Works Online
Categorized & Annotated
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 Worldwide:
 Art Institute of Chicago
Harvard University Art Museums, Massachusetts
7,000 works from the Harvard database
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.
8 works online
Ben Shahn at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
15 works online when last checked
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
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
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts
Amon Carter Museum, Texas
World's Greatest Comics
Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University, Illinois
Four Tunisian Soldiers, watercolor, 1938
Brauer Museum of Art at Valparaiso University, Indiana
Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences, Charleston, West Virginia
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
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
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana
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.)
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas
Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College, Chicago
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
National Gallery of Victoria, Australia
2 works online
Ben Shahn at the National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C.
J. Robert Oppenheimer, drawing, 1954
New Art Gallery, Walsall, England
Psalm 133 - Dove with Painted Text
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma
To Roads in Unknown Regions, 1968
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia
Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey
San Diego Museum of Art, California
Requires Flash: Click on "S", then select artist name
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, Nebraska
Trouble
Ben Shahn at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
Tate Gallery, London, UK
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
- 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
University of Delaware Museums
Study for mural, 1955-57
University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City
University of Kentucky Art Museum
Farmers
Walker Art Center, Minnesota
Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas
6 works online
Williams College Museum of Art, Massachusetts
Portrait of Walker Evans, 1931
National Art Databases and Museum Inventories:
Smithsonian American Art Museum National 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)
Art Market:
(e.g. records of past sales at auction; sites providing examples of the artist's signature)
Christie's Past Sale Archive NEW!
(database goes as far back as 1991; images go about as far back as 1999)
Sotheby's Sold Lot Archive NEW!
(database goes as far back as 1998; images where permitted by copyright go about as far back as 2001)
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)
New York Public Library Digital Gallery
University of Michigan SILS Art Image Browser
USC Annenberg School for Communication
Additional Image Search Tools: NEW!
(SafeSearch set to "strict"; go to Advanced Search (Flickr/Google) or Preferences (Bing) to change)
Miscellaneous Sites:
Mistica info (in Italian)
Menorah, 1965
PBS
Information from the documentary Ben Shahn: Passion for Justice
Photography @ Temple University Online
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Massacusetts
Lot #206 in this 2008 fundraising auction was a lithograph by Ben Shahn
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Massacusetts
Lot #61 in this 2007 fundraising auction was a lithograph by Ben Shahn
Time Magazine Cover Archive
Martin Luther King, 1965
Time Magazine Cover Archive
Johann Sebastian Bach, 1968
Articles and Reference Sites:
Answers.com reference works 
The "Art Encyclopedia" entry is from the Concise Grove Dictionary of Art (2002). The "Photography Encyclopedia" entry is from the The Oxford Companion to the Photograph (2005).
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 100-word preview only. Troubleshooting
Union List of Artist Names (Getty Museum)
Reference sheet with basic information about the artist and pointers to other references.
Oxford Dictionary of Art (eNotes)
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
Ben Shahn at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington D.C.
1964 interview from the Oral History project
Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington D.C.
1965 interview from the Oral History project
Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Washington D.C.
1968 interview from the Oral History project
Spartacus Educational Books
War Artists of W.W.I.
Multimedia:
Antiques Roadshow (PBS) Appraisals
"World War II Propaganda Posters"
"Look Inside" and "Search Inside" Books at Amazon
| Look Inside Books: | Selections from the books listed below are scanned in, in high res. Text is clearly readable and art reproductions vary from so-so to excellent. Don't miss the fact that you can usually zoom in via the "View" drop-down menu, along the top row of Amazon's Online Reader. | |
| Search Inside Books: | Same as "Look Inside", except that the entire book is scanned in, and the text is fully searchable. This is an unbelievable resource, for research and especially for previewing a book when making the decision to buy.
Note: Some "Search Inside" features are limited to people signed in to an account which has previously made a purchase at Amazon. | |
look inside
Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times
look inside
Common Man/Mythic Vision: The Paintings of Ben Shahn
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