Artist Activist

Painter, printmaker, and photographer Ben Shahn was born in Lithuania on this day in 1898.

Social and political activism were essential elements of his diverse work. In H-Bomb Poster, Shahn combines his social conscience and his printmaking skills in a disturbing image.

During his lithography apprenticeship Shahn grew to appreciate the relationships of lettering. "I enjoyed a year or so of complete infatuation with type," he stated. "I set everything that I could in types with which I was beginning to be familiar; I did posters all in type—a strange turn for an artist—or posters in which type boldly predominated." Shahn designed posters for the Office of War Information in 1942 and for other government departments from 1944 to 1946.

Learn more about American history and printmaking in our online exhibition Posters American Style. Shahn's portrait below comes from our Peter A. Juley and Son Collection. Search for more artist portraits when you visit that collection online!

Source: Therese Thau Heyman. Posters American Style (New York and Washington, D.C.: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in association with the National Museum of American Art, 1998).

Pictured top: Ben Shahn (1898 Lithuania–1969 USA), H-Bomb Poster, 1960, color serigraph, 42 1/2 x 29 1/4 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Baum in memory of Edith Gregor Halpert.

Pictured bottom: Ben Shahn (1898-1969). Photographic portrait from the Peter A. Juley and Son Collection, Smithsonian American Art Museum.