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A painting of three men standing in front of a building.

The painting shows three men standing in front of a building. On the left a medium dark skinned man wearing a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow and a white apron is seen in profile facing right. In the center a medium light skinned man with a small moustache, wearing a hat, a white shirt, black tie and gray suit a folded newspaper tucked under his left arm, faces the viewer. On the right a Black man wearing a hat, a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow and dark trousers, leans against a pilaster with a scroll decoration

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1997.20
People
Ben Shahn, American (Kovno (now Kaunas), Lithuania 1898 - 1969 New York, NY)
Title
Three Men
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
1939
Places
Creation Place: North America, United States
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/173154

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1320, Modern and Contemporary Art, Social Realism
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Tempera on paper mounted to masonite
Dimensions
image: 45 x 76.8 cm (17 11/16 x 30 1/4 in.)
framed: 67.5 x 90.4 cm (26 9/16 x 35 9/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: lower right: Ben Shahn

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[The Downtown Gallery, New York, New York]. Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman, Detroit, Michigan, 1954. [Kennedy Galleries, New York, New York, 1969]. Anthony Mitchell, Waterford, Michigan, 1975. [Jordan-Volpe Gallery, Inc., New York, New York], 1995, sold; to Harvard University Art Museums, 1997.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Louis Agassiz Shaw Bequest and the Richard Norton Memorial Fund
Copyright
© Estate of Ben Shahn / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Year
1997
Object Number
1997.20
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
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Publication History

  • Collection in Progress, Selections from the Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman Collection of American Art, exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI, 1955), no. 54
  • Lawrence A. Fleischman, Nine generations of American painting : a loan exhibition from the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Lawrence A. Fleischman Collection, exh. cat., Bezalel National Museum (Jerusalem, Israel, 1958 - 1960), no. 55
  • American Painting, 1765-1963, Selections from the Lawrence A. and Barbara Fleischman Collection of American Art, exh. cat., University of Arizona Art Gallery (Tucson, AZ, February 1964 - March 1964), p. 61, no. 87, illus. p. 67
  • Ben Shahn, exh. cat., Kennedy Galleries, Inc. (New York, NY, November 1969), no. 16, ill.
  • Memorial Exhibition: Louis Bouche, Adolf Dehn, Marcel Duchamp and Ben Shahn, exh. cat., American Academy of Arts and Letters (New York, NY, February 1970 - April 1970), no. 47
  • Twentieth-Century American Masters, exh. cat., Kennedy Galleries, Inc. (New York, NY, October 1971 - November 1971), no. 38, ill.
  • Mathew Baigell, The American Scene: American Painting of the 1930s, Praeger (New York, 1974), p. 185, fig. 104, ill.
  • Manuel Fernandez Miranda, Ben Shahn: Dibujos y Fotografias de los anos treinta y cuarenta, exh. cat., Salas Pablo Ruiz Picasso Museum (Madrid, Spain, 1984), p. 72
  • Ashcan to Abstraction, brochure, Jordan-Volpe Gallery, Inc. (New York, NY, 1995), no. 31, illus.
  • James Cuno, ed., A Decade of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions by the Harvard University Art Museums, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, Mass., Spring 2000), pp. 77-78. ill. (b/w)
  • Deborah Martin Kao, Laura Katzman, and Jenna Webster, Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2000), fig. 53, p. 195
  • "Painter's Photography", IMA Living with Photography (Tokyo, Japan, 2014), Vol. 10, pp. 126-129, p. 127, ill. (color)

Exhibition History

  • Collection in Progress: Selections from the Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman Collection, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, 01/01/1954 - 12/31/1954
  • Nine Generations of American Painting, Bezalel National Museum, 06/01/1958 - 06/30/1958
  • American Painting 1765-1963, University of Arizona Art Gallery, 02/01/1964 - 03/31/1964
  • Ben Shahn, Kennedy Galleries, Inc., 11/01/1969 - 11/30/1969
  • Memorial Exhibition: Louis Bouche, Adolf Dehn, Marcel Duchamp and Ben Shahn, American Academy of Arts and Letters, 02/01/1970 - 04/30/1970
  • Twentieth Century American Masters, Kennedy Galleries, Inc., 10/01/1971 - 11/30/1971
  • Ashcan to Abstraction: American Selections, 1900 to 1950, Jordan-Volpe Gallery, Inc., 09/30/1995 - 11/11/1995
  • Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 02/05/2000 - 04/30/2000; The Phillips Collection, Washington, 06/10/2000 - 08/27/2000; Grey Art Gallery, New York, 10/14/2000 - 01/27/2001; David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, 04/19/2001 - 06/10/2001
  • Ben Shahn: Cross Media Artist, Photograph, Painting and Graphic Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Hayama, Kanagawa, 12/03/2011 - 01/29/2012; Nagoya City Art Museum, Nagoya, 02/11/2012 - 03/25/2012; The Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art, Okayama-shi, 04/08/2012 - 05/20/2012
  • 32Q: 1320 Social Realism, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 04/29/2015 - 10/14/2015; Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 10/17/2024 - 04/14/2025
  • The Construction of the World - Art and the Economy, Kunsthalle Mannheim, Mannheim, 10/11/2018 - 02/03/2019

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Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu