Ben Shahn

Ben Shahn
Ben Shahnwas a Lithuanian-born American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as The Shape of Content...
NationalityLithuanian
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth12 September 1898
CountryLithuania
photography sketching found
I became interested in photography when I found my own sketching was inadequate.
art essence fundamentals
To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them.
art enlightenment may
Art almost always has its ingredient of impudence, its flouting of established authority, so that it may substitute its own authority and its own enlightenment.
artist conservative members
The artist is likely to be looked upon with some uneasiness by the more conservative members of society.
photography eye decision
Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for the moment at which you are going to snap, you know.
artist live-your-life being-an-artist
Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
thinking doe painting
If one has set for himself the position that his painting shall not misconstrue his personal mode of thinking, then he must be rather alert to just what he does think.
jobs artist wife
An ametuer is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.
believe artist labels
I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.
abandon cameras gadgets people simpler sure
Now again, there are so many gadgets on cameras now that people abandon these simpler instruments for the more sure instruments.
art life line
His every line of writing was art. And yet such art was inseparable from its life content.
best felt function newspaper people photograph possible seen ways
I felt the function of a photograph was to have it seen by as many people as possible and the newspaper is one of the best ways or the magazine.
beyond brought flatter measure roosevelt thinking
I could flatter myself in thinking our photographs brought Roosevelt in in '36 overwhelmingly. But beyond that you can't measure it.