I'm Haunted by Ben Shahn

The Faces, the Faces

Waiting for dinner bell, harvest time, Ohio, Ben Shahn/FSA, Aug. 1938.

Ben Shahn is known more for his murals than for his photographs, but his photographs for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s are what draw me most to him. Shahn's FSA file contains a bit under 3,000 pictures. Some are missed shots (not surprising with the close-in, fast-moving situations he frequently sought out); many are simply documentary (this is what he was being paid to do); and a few are brilliant, in my opinion.

I finally broke down and went through the whole file. Here are my eleven picks. These images speak to me, and connect me vividly with a world that, from today's vantage, seems almost impossibly remote.

It is the world of the Great Depression. There is fear, and anxiety, and, especially among the children, surprising joy in simply being alive. And there is steadfast courage, lying just below the surface.

Shahn was not alone in doing this work. The photographers of the FSA were an amazingly talented bunch; the FSA photo project's most famous photograph is undoubtedly Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother (1936). And then there's Walker Evans, and Russell Lee. I love them all, but I feel a special attachment to Shahn.

I think it's partly because he is so free with his camera - horizons tilt,  body parts are unexpectedly cut off; juxtapositions are odd but often beautiful; overlays are just part of the game. Balance is out; asymmetry is too calm a word for what is going on. There's more to it, though. The best of his work creates very sensitive portraits of real people who are not necessarily having their best day, and then delivers them in a cacophonous package that is in fact a very strong piece of graphic art.

Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Ben Shahn/FSA, perhaps Nov. 1941.

Crippled miner, Westmoreland County, Pa. Ben Shahn/FSA, Oct. 1935.

Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Ben Shahn/FSA, perhaps Nov. 1941.

Cotton pickers, 6:30 a.m., Arkansas. Ben Shahn/FSA, Oct. 1935.

Schoolchildren, West Virginia. Ben Shahn/FSA, Oct. 1935.

Shenandoah Valley, Virginia. Ben Shahn/FSA, perhaps Nov. 1941.

Waiting outside relief station, Ohio.  Ben Shahn/FSA, Aug. 1938.

Street musicians, Arkansas. Ben Shahn/FSA, Oct. 1935.

Harvest hand, Ohio. Ben Shahn/FSA, summer 1938.

Wheat harvest, Ohio. Ben Shahn/FSA, July-Aug. 1938.

Further Reading
The FSA website has a good essay on Shahn. To see it, click here.

The Library of Congress has also produced a book: The Photographs of Ben Shahn (2008). This volume contains 50 photographs and an interesting introduction by Timothy Egan.

For a very thorough appreciation of Shahn's work as a photographer, including his technique and sources of inspiration, and the relationships between his photographs and his paintings, with particular focus on his  early photographic work in New York City, see Deborah Martin Kao, Laura Katzman, and Jenna Webster, Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times (2000).

Here's a good biography: Howard Greenfeld, Ben Shahn: An Artist's Life (1998).