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Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity
About this book
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 SofĂa, Madrid, in association with Princeton University Press
Exhibition Schedule
The Jewish Museum, New York
May 23–October 12, 2025
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover Page
- Frontispiece
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Editorial Note
- Lenders to the Exhibition
- Contents
- Foreword
- Acknowledgments
- Essays
- Art and Activism: The Currency of Ben Shahn
- Working and Waiting: Ben Shahnâs Pictures of and after Labor
- Dignity, Grimness, Urgency: Ben Shahn and the Poster Art of World War II
- Ben Shahn at MoMA in 1947: Reflections on Aesthetic Debates in the Early Cold War Era
- Works
- The Roots of Activism: Ben Shahnâs âCauses CĂŠlèbresâ
- 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