This artist was born in 1898 in Lithuania and died in New York City in 1969. His father, an activist, had been deported to America and Ben immigrated as a child with the rest of his Jewish family soon after. He became an artist of print and paint in Social Realism. His early career focused on protest of his times. He painted the human condition, its pain and injustice, with sharp political edges. His works spoke of The Depression, The Dust Bowl, World Wars, and the indomitable human spirit. He is quoted as saying that he only created around what he loved and what he abhorred. His later works focused on his loves including this piece on working the land. It is a screenprint with watercolor. It is a work of simple subtleties and complex considerations. Do you see endurance, rebirth, and hope?

He is quoted as saying:

“If we are to have values, a spiritual life, a culture, these things must find their imagery and their interpretation through the art.”

Ben Shahn believed that art had the power “to lift the level of perceptivity, to increase and enrich the average individual’s store of values.”

Thanks be to God for those who speak with brush and pen, with bow and keyboard, with genius of mind, body and spirit guiding us again and again to what is good and right and true. May we notice. Amen.

In gratitude, faith and hope,