"Art almost always has its own air of impudence—its flouting of authority, its own enlightenment." —Ben ShahnBen Shahn's lithograph, You Have Not Converted a Man Because You Have Silenced Him, makes its own defiant statement.
A Salute to Ben Shahn during Jewish Heritage Week
"Art almost always has its own air of impudence—its flouting of authority, its own enlightenment."
—Ben ShahnBen Shahn's lithograph, You Have Not Converted a Man Because You Have Silenced Him, makes its own defiant statement.
In this poster, Shahn brings his distinctive style of creating a figure with black crayon line into balance with his extensive interest in lettering and typography.
It was produced as part of the "Great Ideas of Western Man" series issued by the Container Corporation of America.
Here Shahn illustrates a quotation from John Viscount Morley, an English Member of Parliament and Secretary of State of India. This poster joins an artist known for his liberal views with a politician remembered as an outspoken pacifist.
Learn more about Ben Shahn and other artists in our online show Posters American Style.
Source: Posters: American Style (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, 1999) at http://americanart.si.edu/collections/exhibits/posters/index.html.
Pictured: Ben Shahn, 1898 Lithuania–1969 USA, You Have Not Converted a Man Because You Have Silenced Him, 1968, offset lithograph on paper, 45 x 30 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Container Corporation of America, © 1998 Estate of Ben Shahn/Licensed by VAGA, New York, N.Y.