Ben Shahns New York

This exhibition, organized by the Harvard University Art Museums, presented the photographic work of the celebrated American social realist artist Ben Shahn (1898-1969). The exhibition explored the function and meaning of Shahn's experimental work in photography and his subsequent contribution to the emerging field of social documentary within the larger social and political climate of the 1930s and the Great Depression. Including over 150 photographs, ink drawings, easel paintings, mural studies and relevant ephemera, Ben Shahn's New York gave visitors the opportunity to view an important and little-examined body of Shahn's work, which was formative for the artist's photographic aesthetic and working process.

Curator: Organized by the Fogg Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Smart Museum presentation was coordinated by Stephanie Smith, Smart Museum Associate Curator.

This exhibition was made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Smart presentation was made possible by a grant from the Nathan Cummings Foundation, secured by Beatrice Cummings Mayer, and by the Regents Park/University of Chicago Fine Arts Partnership.

Pressetext

Ben Shahn's New York
The Photography of Modern Times
Organisation: Fogg Art Museum Cambridge; Smart Museum Chicago
Kurator Smart Museum: Stephanie Smith