COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0000725
image_record_id
aahi0000725
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
Ohio Magic (Urban Street Scene)
Image Title:
full view
Work Dates (display):
1945
Work Dates type:
creation
Work Creator (display):
Ben Shahn (American, 1898-1969)
Work Creator gender:
male
work_creator_or_agent_gender
male
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
American painter, photographer and lithographer of Lithuanian birth. He was born into a family of Jewish craftsmen who emigrated in 1906, settling in New York. From 1913 to 1917 Shahn served as an apprentice in Hessenberg's Lithography Shop in Manhattan, and in the evenings he attended high school in Brooklyn. In 1916 he enrolled in a life-drawing class at the Art Students League. After studying biology, first at New York University (1919) and then at City College, New York (191922), he entered the National Academy of Design to pursue a career as an artist (1923). After marrying in 1922, Shahn travelled with his wife to North Africa, Spain, Italy and France (19245; 19279), where he studied both the art of the past and also the works of Matisse, Dufy, Rouault, Picasso and Klee. On his return from Europe in 1925 they moved to Brooklyn Heights. There he met Walker Evans, with whom he began to share a studio. Also in 1925 he began to spend summers in the art colony of Truro, near Provincetown, MA, painting beach scenes and landscapes. He was dissatisfied with his paintings of this period, so much so that he declined an invitation to exhibit at the Montross Gallery in 1926, feeling that his work was still too derivative of the European painters that he had studied (e.g. Little Church, c. 1925; Newark, NJ, Mus.). Shahn's first one-man exhibition was held in 1930 at the Downtown Gallery, New York, and consisted of paintings made on the island of Djerba, off Tunisia. After returning from North Africa in 1929, he became convinced that he wanted his art to refer to contemporary life. In Paris he had bought a small book on the Dreyfus case, and his interest in the trials led to 13 watercolours on the Dreyfus theme, including Captain Dreyfus (1930; Princeton, NJ, Dorothea Greenbaum priv. col., see Shahn, 1972, p. 122). Shahn became known as a social realist in 1932 following the exhibition of a series of 23 gouache paintings entitled the Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti (e.g. Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco, New York, MOMA). They are characterized by strong linearity and use distortion as an expressive conveyer of emotion. In the theme of the trials and execution of immigrant anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti, which became a cause célèbre of intellectuals in the 1920s, Shahn felt he had discovered a contemporary subject analogous to the crucifixion of Christ. In 1933 Shahn painted a similar series about the trials in 1916 of San Francisco labour leader, Tom Mooney, and in 1933 he assisted Diego Rivera on the frescoes for the Rockefeller Center in New York, but they were removed when they were discovered to contain a portrait of Lenin. During the 1930s and 1940s Shahn painted murals for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project (WPA/FAP) and was also employed by the Farm Security Administration (FSA.; 19358) to document the plight of American agricultural workers (e.g. Cotton Pickers, Pulaski County, Arkansas, 1935; see Pratt, p. 39). Many of Shahn's lithographs were linked to his photographs and his experience with the FSA, such as Years of Dust (1936; see Prescott, 1982, pl. x). His later work shows an increased interest in Hebraic subjects, for example Identity (mixed media on paper, 1968; Madrid, Mus. Thyssen-Bornemisza; see Jewish art, fig. 22). In 1956 Shahn held the Charles Norton Chair of Poetics at Harvard University and his lectures summarizing his artistic philosophy of realism were published as The Shape of Content (Cambridge, MA, 1957). (Grove Art Online Accesssed 2007-10-22)
Work Style Period:
social realism
work_styleperiod
social realism
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
Modernist
work_styleperiod
Modernist
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
20th century
work_styleperiod
20th century
Work Style Period
false
Work Subject:
Ohio (state)
subject
Ohio (state)
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
streets
subject
streets
Work Subject
false
Work Subject:
cityscapes (representations)
subject
cityscapes (representations)
Work Subject
false
Work Worktype:
oil paintings
work_type
oil paintings
Work Worktype
false
Work Worktype:
paintings (visual works)
work_type
paintings (visual works)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
paintings
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
paintings
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Material and Technique (display):
oil on canvas
Work Measurements (display):
66 cm (H) x 99.1 cm (W)
Work Inscription (display):
signed
Work Location (Repository or Site) name:
M.H. De Young Memorial Museum
Work Location (Repository or Site) role:
repository
Work Location (Repository or Site) refid:
1948.14
Work Location (Repository or Site) refid type:
accession
Work Location (Geographic) name:
San Francisco, California
Image Rights (display):
© Ronald Wiedenhoeft. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Saskia, Ltd.
Image Rights license agreement:
SASKIA, LTD.: WHO CAN USE THIS SOFTWARE: (a) Licensee, including faculty, staff and currently enrolled students may use the Licensed Software to display and or print the corresponding graphic images without limitation for teaching and research purposes at the defined Sites, or at remote locations having electronic access to your Site(s). (b) This license include permission to use the Licensed Software on a multi-user network at the defined Site, and to permit remote access to a computer/server located at your Site. Simultaneous display in multiple locations at or connected to the Site is also permitted. (c) Licensee agrees to employ reasonable security measures designed to limit access to your faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. PROHIBITED USES AND LIMITATIONS: (a) Saskia hereby reserves all rights not expressly granted herein. (b) the License Software may not be used for preparaiton of any publication, scholarly or otherwise; or for any purpose other than teaching or research. Publication of an image from the Licensed Software requires a separate license from Saskia. (c) Licensee agrees not to resell, lease, transfer, sub-license or otherwise distribute a copy of the Licensed Software, or any image taken from the Licensed Software, in whole or in part. (d) Licensee also agrees not to modify, corrupt or alter any digital image graphic content or "digital watermark" or the like in the software provided by Saskia under this Agreement. (e) Licensee agrees not to remove, alter, cover or distort Saskia's copyright notice, trademark, or other proprietary rights notice placed by Saskia in the Licensed Software itself, or in the associated packaging, media or documentation. (f) And Licensee agrees to notify users of the Licensed Software, in writing or by sign-on screen display, of their obligations under this Agreement and solicit their cooperation and compliance with such obligations.
Work Rights (display):
© Ben Shahn
Terms of Agreement and Conditions of Use:
YOU AGREE: Luna Imaging's Insight Software and the digital image collection associated with it (the Software) are being provided by the University of Colorado under the following license. By obtaining, using, and/or copying this work, you (the Licensee) agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with the following terms and conditions. 1. The Software contains the University of Colorado's Department of Art and Art History's implementation of a digital image collection; 2. Any images obtained through use of the Software will be used only for non-profit, educational purposes; 3. The use of images obtained through the software will only be used while the Licensee is either: a) an employee of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver, or b) an enrolled student at the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver; 4. When the Licensee is no longer an employee or student of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or Community College of Denver, either by an action of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or the Community College of Denver or due to actions of the Licensee, the licensee will cease to use any images exported from the Department of Art and Art History's digital image collection; 5. The Licensee agrees to indemnify the University for claims and liability arising out of the use of the Software or for any violations of this license; 6. THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SUPPLIES THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Center
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see