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,… ▶375Time
Ben ShahnTo abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds them. ✨ Ben Shahn (1957).… ▶355Life
Ben ShahnI feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography.335Politics
Ben ShahnHow do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black.338Sadness
Ben ShahnEvery great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists.272Politics
Ben ShahnI believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none. ✨ Ben Shahn (1957). The Shape of Content, p.48, Harvard University Press308Death
Ben ShahnAn 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.276Sadness
Ben ShahnI became interested in photography when I was sharing a studio with Walker Evans, and found my own sketching was inadequate. ✨ Ben Shahn.234Humanity
Ben ShahnIf you're going to be an artist, all life is your subject. And all your experience is part of your art. A youngster told me recently that he was going to give himself a year to se… ▶257LifeSadnessTime
Ben ShahnAll art is based on non-conformity.203Truth
Ben ShahnWe tried to present the ordinary in an extraordinary manner. But that's the paradox because the only thing extraordinary about it was that it was so ordinary. Nobody had ever done… ▶193Time
Ben ShahnI 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 l… ▶194HumanityLife
Ben ShahnIt 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.174HumanityThoughtTime
Ben ShahnNow, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited. ✨ Ben Shahn (1972). Ben Shahn166Humanity
Ben ShahnWhen 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 an… ▶166HumanityLife
Ben ShahnThe 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.2010PoliticsTime
Ben ShahnI love chaos.... It's the poetic element in a dull and ordered world. ✨ Ben Shahn (1972). Ben Shahn148Love
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 kn… ▶149Time
