Behold How Good
Harvard has put a large number of Ben Shahn images from its archives into a searchable database available online. The online collection appears to be associated with a meatspace exhibition at the Fogg Museum on Harvard’s campus (ed: FROM 1956!).
The above sketch is for a poster that I looked at quite a bit when I was designing a poster for a series of lectures that accompanied an exhibition of photos and documents on the UNC campus. The Shahn-inspired design I made was not the final design we printed, but his spirit is in a lot of the work I make. I will undoubtedly publish something more directly inspired by him before too long. Along with Egon Schiele and Saul Bass, as well as Andy Warhol’s commercial illustrations, Shahn’s work lives in my head as a vivid example of interesting line, scrappy colors, and impeccable design and composition.
If you are in Cambridge, MA, take a look at the collection for me after the exhibition opens on December 4th! (see comment below)
November 12th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Will do. Thanks for the pointer!
November 12th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Doh! It looks like this may not actually be an exhibit going up this year, unless you have a time machine aimed towards Cambridge in 1956 that you plan to fire up next month. I was fooled by the image that sits on the “cover” of the online archive, here. (thanks, Matt)