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The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn’t have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn’t get as far as Hoboken at that time.

Ben Shahn

I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography.
BEN SHAHN

Choices Felt Mediums Photography
Only an individual can imagine, invent, or create. The whole audience of art is an audience of individuals.
BEN SHAHN

Art Imagine Individuality
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 SHAHN

Art Human Men Mision Reminder Today
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 SHAHN

Art Class Prediction Sculpture
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.
BEN SHAHN

Action Interested People Photography Sake
Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited.
BEN SHAHN

Knowledge Limited Photography
Being an artist is not only what you do, but how you live your life.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Being Life Live
The natural reaction of the artist will be strongly towards bringing man back into focus as the center of importance.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Focus Men
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.
BEN SHAHN

Personality Teaching Voice
The artist is likely to be looked upon with some uneasiness by the more conservative members of society.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Conservative Member
I became interested in photography when I was sharing a studio with Walker Evans, and found my own sketching was inadequate.
BEN SHAHN

Found Photography Sketching
Personal style, be it that of Michelangelo, or that of Tintoretto… has always been that peculiar personal rapport which has developed between an artist and his medium.
BEN SHAHN

Artist Peculiar Style
It 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 SHAHN

Art Living Pride Prospects Room Wall
All art is based on non-conformity.
BEN SHAHN

Art Based Conformity
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.
BEN SHAHN

Mean People War
The popular eye is not untrained; it is only wrongly trained – trained by inferior and insincere visual representations.
BEN SHAHN

Eye Representation Vision Visual

The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn’t have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn’t get as far as Hoboken at that time.

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The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn’t have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression, you know. I couldn’t get as far as Hoboken at that time.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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