Who was Ben Shahn ?
Woody Allens Annie Hall left Sumita Narona intrigued. After hearing Allen make a joke about Ben Shahn, she mailed in to know whether Shahn was a Russian or Jewish. It all seemed muddled. So, heres to revisiting his art: Shahn was a Lithuanian-born American artist. Lithuania was once part of Russia and touched borders with Poland. However now it is a Republic and is part of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. So clearly Shahn has an interesting linage. Shahns development began in New York. To rewind a bit, Shahns father, Joshua Hessel, was a revolutionary who was exiled to Siberia in 1902 when Shahn was barely a four-year-old. His family was forced to migrate to the United States in 1906, and Hessel joined the family later and they settled in Brooklyn. Shahn began his career as a lithographer. This determined a lot of Shahns style which later evolved into what art historians call social realism. He also worked mainly in egg tempera which we discussed earlier as a technique of painting w
