Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn was born in Lovno, Lithuania, in 1898. When he was four, his father was exiled to Siberia. In 1906 his family immigrated to the United States, where they were reunited with his father.
Ben Shahn left high school to apprentice with a lithographer. He soon became a talented artist and typographer. In 1930 he had his first large showing of his work. Ben Shahn became actively involved with the New Deal as a poster artist and muralist, but he also found time to participate in Stryker's photography project.
Unlike Walker Evans, Ben Shahn had no problem with propaganda on behalf of what he considered a worthy cause. "Look Roy," he reportedly told Stryker about a proposed series of photographs on the Dust Bowl, "you're not going to move anybody with eroded soil, but the effects this eroded soil has on a kid who looks starved, this is going to move people."
Ben Shahn had come to photography as a means of doing studies for his paintings. He worked with a small 35mm Leica, often equipping it with a special right-angle view finder so that his subjects would not know they were being photographed. Like Evans he stalked his subjects from every angle and always with an artist's eye for the significant detail.
Learn about other Arkansas photographers, such as Edwin Locke and Walker Evans.
