The painter and graphic artist Ben Shahn was born in Kovno (Kaunas, Lithuania) and, in 1909, came to New York City, where he received formal training in art. From the late 1920s until about 1950, he worked in a social realist tradition, attacking injustice, prejudice, and brutality. During the Great Depression, he was employed as a photographer by the Farm Security Administration to document the unemployed and the poor, government homestead projects, and rural, small-town life. After 1950, his work became more allegorical and symbolic, and he turned increasingly to producing illustrated Hebrew texts.
Shahn frequently based his paintings on his own photographs. East Side Soap Box is based on a photo of Jewish workers protesting in Madison Square Park in Manhattan. The Yiddish sign reads: “Nature…
Veritas sequitur . . .
In the small beauty of the forest
The wild deer bedding down—
That they are there!
Their eyes
Effortless, the soft lips
Nuzzle and the alien small teeth
Tear at the grass
T…
Abraham Rattner painted Design for the Memory in 1943 when the murder of Jews by the Nazis was underway in Europe. He chose Christian iconography, namely, the crucifixion of Jesus, to express his…