Description
Book SynopsisLithuanian-born artist Ben Shahn learned fresco painting as an assistant to Diego Rivera in the 1930s and created his own visually powerful, technically sophisticated, and stylistically innovative artworks as part of the New Deal Arts Projectâs national mural program. In Ben Shahnâs New Deal Murals: Jewish Identity in the American Scene author Diana L. Linden demonstrates that Shahn mined his Jewish heritage and left-leaning politics for his style and subject matter, offering insight into his muralsâ creation and their sometimes complicated reception by officials, the public, and the press. In four chapters, Linden presents case studies of select Shahn murals that were created from 1933 to 1943 and are located in public buildings in New York, New Jersey, and Missouri. She studies Shahnâs famous untitled fresco for the Jersey Homesteadsâa utopian socialist cooperative community populated with former Jewish garment workers and funded under the New DealâShahnâs mural for the Bronx Post Of
