Bibliography

Anreus, Alejandro. Ben Shahn and the Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti. Jersey City: Jersey City Museum, 2001.   

    This book discusses the progression throughout artist Ben Shahn's career as he continuously returned to depicting the case of Sacco and Vanzetti in his artwork. The book provides insight into Shahn's motivations for depicting this theme in his artwork and the societal influences that caused Shahn to return to this theme over many decades. Although this book is useful for putting the theme of Sacco and Vanzetti into the broad context of Shahn's career, researchers looking for specific analyses of these works would find that the author falls short in providing sufficient information relevant to each piece.


"Ben Shahn: American Artist." The Art Story. www.theartstory.org


Chevlowe, Susan and Linden, Diana. Common Man, Mythic Vision: The Paintings of Ben Shahn. Princeton University Press, 1998.


"Contemporary Painters and Sculptors as Printmakers." Museum of Modern Art. www.moma.org.


Kimmelman, Michael. "ART REVIEW; Trying to Separate Ben Shahn's Art From His Politics." The New York Times. November 13, 1998. Accessed December 11, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/13/arts/art-review-trying-to-separate-ben-shahn-s-art-from-his-politics.html.


Kuykendall, Lara. "Shahn, The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti." Khan Academy. www.khanacademy.org.


Laurier, Joanne. "World Socialist Web Site." Anger and form in the work of Ben Shahn. September 03, 1999. Accessed December 11, 2017. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/09/sha-s03.html.


Linden, Diana. Ben Shahn's New Deal Murals: Jewish Identity in the American Scene. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2015.

    This book deals with Ben Shahn’s career as an artist at the point in which he did mostly fresco artwork and public murals. The book also goes into detail of how Shahn’s works incorporated his identity as Jewish and an immigrant into his artwork, so as to put them in the “American Scene”, and how this correlated with social issues of the time and Shahn’s place as a social realist artist.


Prescott, Kenneth. The Complete Graphic Works of Ben Shahn. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1973.

This book is a complete collection of images of Shahn’s work contextualizing each piece within his career, and includes a brief personal and professional history of Shahn. This book is useful in that it illustrates in chronological order the evolution of Shahn’s work and the motivations behind pieces created at specific times in Shahn’s life. It was especially illuminating in its description of impact of the Sacco and Vanzetti case on Shahn’s career; specifically, how the case caused Shahn to turn from an aesthetic painter to a social realist. However, because the book mainly existed as a catalogue, the text was somewhat limited. It gave overviews of Shahn’s work and contextualized the pieces, but it was not exceptionally analytical.


Preston, Stuart. "Art: Painters' and Sculptors' Prints." New York Times, Sep 15, 1964.


Shahn, Ben. The Shape of Content. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957. 

This book is a collection of different essays that explore Shahn’s opinions about the possibilities and limitations of art in a liberal-arts education. This book allows the reader to effectively analyze the questionable existence of art in a university setting from Shahn’s perspective. It underlines the structure of the university education and elaborates on what needs to be done to allow for the university student to produce great, nonconformist art. Although Shahn reflects on his evolution as an artist, the book would benefit through the exploration of connections between his expressed ideas and the art he was producing during specific time periods.


The Museum of Modern Art. "Museum of Modern Art Presents Retrospective Exhibition of Ben Shahn's Paintings, Drawings, Posters and Sketches for Murals." News release, 1946-1947. Www.moma.org. Accessed December 10, 2017. https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_press-release_325580.pdf.


Unknown. Bartolomeo Vanzetti, handcuffed to Nicola Sacco. 1923. Boston Public Library. Dedham, Massachusetts Superior Court. 




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