Description:
Three men in formal wear;
Label Text:
A committed Socialist, Ben Shahn worked as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration during the 1930s as well as a mural painter and printmaker for the Works Progress Administration, the federally-supported arts project that provided work for artists during the Depression. Much of Shahn's best work has a strong graphic quality, a skill he honed by making posters during the Second World War as part of the Office of War Information. Even before his experience making posters, however, political content dominated his work from the early 1930s onward and continued until his death.
This image depicts a gathering of three Republicans, Michigan's Senator Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg (left), New York Governor and future Presidential nominee (in both 1944 and 1948) Thomas E. Dewey (center), and Ohio Senator and son of the former President, Robert Alphonso Taft. Their frozen and slightly menacing toothy grins coupled with the sense of exclusiveness of this group present a decidedly unflattering image of professional politicians.
At the time this print was made, artists had only recently begun using silkscreen to create limited edition prints. In order to downplay the commercial origins of the silkscreen process, many artists termed their prints "serigraphs" rather than using the more common names "silkscreen" or "screenprint."
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1971.2.6 |
