In this pathbreaking study, Frances Pohl traces the political and artistic struggles Ben Shāhn became embroiled in as he tried to remain a socially concerned artist during the early Cold War period. She shows how he rejected the argument, voiced by many Abstract Expressionists, that art and politics should not mix, yet at the same time searched for a way to depict, in universal and allegorical terms, the broad human condition rather than simply specific instances of injustice. Perhaps most important, she makes critical connections between U.S. social and political history and the art it provoked, thus illuminating both the later career of Ben Shāhn and the Cold War era in American cultural history.
In this pathbreaking study, Frances Pohl traces the political and artistic struggles Ben Shāhn became embroiled in as he tried to remain a socially concerned artist during the early Cold War period. She shows how he rejected the argument, voiced by many Abstract Expressionists, that art and politics should not mix, yet at the same time searched for a way to depict, in universal and allegorical terms, the broad human condition rather than simply specific instances of injustice. Perhaps most important, she makes critical connections between U.S. social and political history and the art it provoked, thus illuminating both the later career of Ben Shāhn and the Cold War era in American cultural history.
Ben Shahn: New Deal Artist in a Cold War Climate, 1947-1954
249Ben Shahn: New Deal Artist in a Cold War Climate, 1947-1954
249Paperback(1ST ED.)
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780292755383 |
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Publisher: | University of Texas Press |
Publication date: | 06/01/1989 |
Series: | American Studies Series |
Edition description: | 1ST ED. |
Pages: | 249 |
Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.20(d) |