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.
BEN SHAHNNow, 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.
BEN SHAHNThe natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance.
BEN SHAHNA 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.
BEN SHAHNOf 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.
BEN SHAHNAll 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.
BEN SHAHNTo abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter.
BEN SHAHNIt may be any one of an infinite number of concepts, none of which may have any possible bearing upon its degree of newness.
BEN SHAHNEach 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 SHAHNIt may be a point of great pride to have a Van Gogh on the living room wall, but the prospects of having Van Gogh himself in the living room would put a great many devoted art lovers to rout.
BEN SHAHNI believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none.
BEN SHAHNThe artist is likely to be looked upon with some uneasiness by the more conservative members of society.
BEN SHAHNI was brought in, not in the photographic department at all, I was brought in on a thing called Special Skills. I was to do posters, pamphlets, murals, propaganda in general, you know.
BEN SHAHNThe popular eye is not untrained; it is only wrongly trained – trained by inferior and insincere visual representations.
BEN SHAHNIf 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.
BEN SHAHNI 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.
BEN SHAHNForm is the shape of content.
BEN SHAHN