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.
BEN SHAHNEvery great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.
More Ben Shahn Quotes
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I confess that Roy [Stryker] was a little bit dictatorial in his editing and he ruined quite a number of my pictures, which he stopped doing later. He used to punch a hole through a negative. Some of them were incredibly valuable. He didn’t understand at the time.
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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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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.
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A work of art rests its merits in traditional qualities. It may constitute a remarkable feat in craftsmanship; it may be a searching study of psychological states; it may be a nostalgic glance backward.
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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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When you talk about war on poverty it doesn’t mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then you can show a great deal more of how people are living and a very great percentage of our people today.
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Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for the moment at which you are going to snap, you know.
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Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
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Form is the shape of content.
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I’ve been asked often what is the difference between an amateur and a professional artist, and I will tell you.
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An ametuer is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable him to paint.
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The 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.
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It is not the how of painting but the why. To imitate a style would be a little like teaching a tone of voice or a personality.
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The values that reside in art are anarchic, they are every man’s loves and hates and his momentary divine revelation.
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The artist is likely to be looked upon with some uneasiness by the more conservative members of society.
BEN SHAHN