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Ben Shahn Biography
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1898 |
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Born in Kovno (Kaunus), Lithuania.
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1906 |
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Emigrates with his family to New York in 1906.
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1913 |
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Serves as an apprentice to a lithographer.
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1917 - 1921 |
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Studies art at New York University, City College of New York and the National Academy of Design.
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1922 |
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Marries Tillie Goldstein.
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1925 - 1929 |
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Travels several times to Europe and North Africa with his wife.
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1929 |
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Birth of daughter Judith.
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1930 |
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First solo exhibition at The Downtown Gallery in New York. A work is also exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
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1930 |
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His reputation as a leading artist in the social realist movement is cemented.
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1931 |
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Shares a studio with photographer Walker Evans in New York.
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1931 - 1933 |
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Paints his most famous series of works: “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti,” followed by “The Mooney Series.”
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1933 |
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Works with muralist Diego Rivera for a mural at Rockefeller Center in New York.
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1935 |
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After divorcing Tillie, remarries to Bernarda Bryson.
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1936 |
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Birth of daughter Susanna by Bernarda
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1937 |
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Moves to Jersey Homesteads (Roosevelt), New Jersey.
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1933 - 1938 |
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Works as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration, recording images of Depression era America.
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1938 |
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Birth of son Jonathan.
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1937 - 1943 |
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Creates several public murals, including one for the Bronx Courthouse, New York.
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1947 |
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Retrospective exhibition is shown at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
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1954 |
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With Willem de Kooning, chosen to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale.
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1956 - 1957 |
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Serves as the Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard University. His Norton Lectures are published by Harvard as “The Shape of Content.”
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1969 |
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Dies in New York City.
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| Selected Exhibitions |
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2007
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American Modernism, The de Yound Museum, San Francisco, CA
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2007
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For the People, The Frances Lehmen Loeb Art Center, Pougheepsie, NY
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2006
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Starting at Zero - Black Mountain College 1933-57, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire (England)
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2005
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The Bitter Years, Bob Rauschenberg Gallery, Ft. Myers, FL
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2004
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American Expressionism - Art and Social Change, 1920s-1950s, Mary and Leigh Blcok Museum of Art, Evanston, IL
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2003
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New York - Capitale de la photographie (1900-2000), Musee de l'Elysee, Lausanne
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2002
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New York: Capital of Photography, MMoCA - THe Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI
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2001
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Greed and Other Recent Acquisitions, ICP - International Center of Photography, New York City, NY
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2000
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Propaganda and dreams - photography of the 1930s in the USSR and the USA, The State Russian Museum - Mikhailovsky Castle, St. Petersburg
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1999
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Propaganda and dreams - Photographing the 1930s in the USSR and the US, ICP - International Center of Photorgraphy, New York City, NY
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1998
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The Posters American Style, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
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| Links to further information |
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