Ben Shahn, on Nonconformity.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Katzman, Laura.

Contributor:

Cordero Martín, Beatriz.

Decker, Christof.

Fagg, John.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shahn, Ben, 1898-1969--Exhibitions.

Shahn, Ben.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (289 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2025.

Summary:

A richly illustrated new exploration of the painting, photography, and illustration of the politically progressive American artist Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity offers a fresh and wide-ranging account of the work of Ben Shahn (1898-1969), a Jewish immigrant from Russian-controlled Lithuania who became one of America's most prominent and prolific "social viewpoint" artists from the Great Depression through the Vietnam War.Revealing why Shahn remains so relevant today, the book examines his commitment to progressive political causes, from combating fascism to fighting for civil rights. Incorporating international perspectives, it investigates his World War II poster art, labor-related work, and engagement in postwar artistic debates. It brings new insights to Shahn's social realist and documentary styles and their evolution into allegorical, lyrical, and often abstract idioms that embrace the philosophical and the spiritual. And it demonstrates the underappreciated complexity of Shahn's layered visual language and how he experimented with modernist conceptual strategies--often involving photography--to create his paintings, murals, drawings, prints, posters, illustrated books, and commercial designs.Shahn's guiding credo--formulated in the Cold War--asserted that nonconformity was the precondition for all significant art and great social change. Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity illuminates why the artist's work should be seen as a series of "nonconformities" driven by his steadfast dedication to social justice and humanistic values.Published by the Jewish Museum, New York and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, in association with Princeton University PressExhibition ScheduleThe Jewish Museum, New YorkMay 23-October 12, 2025.

Contents:

Cover

Contents

Lenders to the Exhibition

Foreword / James S. Snyder, Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director, Jewish Museum

Acknowledgments / Laura Katzman

Art and Activism: The Currency of Ben Shahn / Laura Katzman

Working and Waiting: Ben Shahn's Pictures of and after Labor / John Fagg

Dignity, Grimness, Urgency: Ben Shahn and the Poster Art of World War II / Christof Decker

Ben Shahn at MoMA in 1947: Reflections on Aesthetic Debates in the Early Cold War Era / Beatriz Cordero Martín with Laura Katzman

Works / Texts by Laura Katzman

The Roots of Activism: Ben Shahn's "Causes Celebres"

A New Deal for Art: From Revolution to Reform

World War II and Its Aftermath

The Labor Movement

Age of Anxiety: The Cold War and Civil Liberties

Art in the Atomic Age

Civil Rights and the Global Struggle for Freedom

Spirituality, Identity, and the Hebrew Bible

List of Works

Selected Bibliography

Jewish Museum Board of Trustees, 2025

Image Credits and Copyrights

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-691-27312-X

OCLC:

1503845306