It is the mission of art to remind man from time to time that he is human, and the time is ripe, just now, today, for such a reminder.
BEN SHAHNThe moving toward one’s inner self is a long pilgrimage for a painter. It offers many temporary successes and high points, but impels him on toward the more adequate image.
More Ben Shahn Quotes
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Nobody had ever done it before, deliberately. Now it’s called documentary, which I suppose is all right … We just took pictures that cried out to be taken.
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Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
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Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
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All art is based on non-conformity.
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If you’re going to be an artist, all life is your subject. And all your experience is part of your art.
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Each artist comes to the painting or sculpture because there he can be told that he, the individual, transcends all classes and flouts all predictions. In the work of art, he finds his uniqueness confirmed.
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I became interested in photography when I was sharing a studio with Walker Evans, and found my own sketching was inadequate.
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I was primarily interested in people, and people in action, so that I did nothing photographically in the sense of doing buildings for their own sake or a still life or anything like that.
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If one has set for himself the position that his painting shall not misconstrue his personal mode of thinking, then he must be rather alert to just what he does think.
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Now, when I came on to Washington to begin my job, I was so interested in photography at that time that I really would have preferred to work with Stryker than with my department, which was more artistic if you wish.
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What is it about conformity itself that causes us all to require it of our neighbors and of our artists and then, with consummate fickleness, to forget those who fall into line and eternally celebrate those who do not?
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The natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance.
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All art is based on nonconformity … Without nonconformity we would have had no Bill of Rights or Magna Carta, no public education system, no nation upon this continent, no continent, no science at all, no philosophy, and considerably fewer religions.
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A youngster told me recently that he was going to give himself a year to see if he has talent. A year! It takes a lifetime to see if you have it. Painting is total engagement.
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I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography.
BEN SHAHN