Ben Shahn: Passion for Justice Video (CC) DVD/VHS

Ben Shahn: Passion for Justice, is a biography of the Jewish immigrant who became a painter, photographer, and lithographer. He is famous for his works of social realism. Shahn studied art in the 1920’s at City College and the National Academy of Design. He was an assistant to Diego Rivera during the time that Rivera was working on the mural at Rockefeller Center in New York. A few years later the Farm Security Administration commissioned the fresco mural that Shahn is most famous for at the community center at Jersey Homesteads, Roosevelt. The mural depicts the struggles for Jewish immigrant arriving in America. Much of Shahn works remained within the theme of social realism and depicted social problems and the difficulties for particular groups.

The biography includes details of Shahn’s life and works with rare interviews with him shortly before his death in 1969. Additional interviews with Ben Shahn’s biographer, Howard Greenfeld, his wife, Bernarda Bryson Shahn, and his daughter, Judith Shahn, provide insight into this famous artist’s life.  Produced in 2001, 58 minutes.

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