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Identification and Creation

Object Number
1956.184.B
People
Ben Shahn, American (Kovno (now Kaunas), Lithuania 1898 - 1969 New York, NY)
Title
Sacco and Vanzetti: Caption
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Caption/Inscription for Sacco and Vanzetti
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
1952
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/310450

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Black ink on cream wove paper
Dimensions
5.2 x 21.5 cm (2 1/16 x 8 7/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Downtown Gallery, New York, New York], sold to Paul J. Sachs, Cambridge Massachusetts (L. 2091), gift; to Fogg Art Museum, 1956.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Meta and Paul J. Sachs
Copyright
© Estate of Ben Shahn / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Year
1956
Object Number
1956.184.B
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Descriptions

Commentary
Text reads: "If it had not been for these thing [sic], I might have live [sic] out my life talking / at street corners to scorning men. I might have die [sic], unmarked, unknown, a failure. / Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in / our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for joostice [sic], / for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident. Our words-- / our lives-- our pains nothing! The taking of our lives-- lives of a good / shoemaker and a poor fish peddler-- all! That last moment belongs / to us-- that agony is our triumph." / --Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Publication History

  • Alejandro Anreus, Ben Shahn and The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, exh. cat., Jersey City Museum (Jersey City, NJ, 2001), checklist no. 11, repr. p. 87 (color), p. 120, also fig. 31
  • Christof Decker, "A Unique Universalism: Ben Shahn and the Rhetoric of Visual Anecdotes", Anecdotal Anglia Book Series, 68; Modernity: Making and Unmaking History, De Gruyter (Berlin and Boston, 2020), 68

Exhibition History

  • The Art of Ben Shahn, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 12/04/1956 - 01/19/1957
  • Ben Shahn: A Documentary Exhibition, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Boston, 04/10/1957 - 05/31/1957
  • 20th Century Master Drawings, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 11/06/1963 - 01/05/1964; University of Minnesota Art Gallery, Minneapolis, 02/03/1964 - 03/15/1964; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/06/1964 - 05/24/1964
  • 10th Annual Exhibition-- Ben Shahn, Temple Beth El, Portland, 05/01/1971 - 05/31/1971
  • American Art at Harvard, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/19/1972 - 06/18/1972
  • Politics as Catalyst for the Arts: The American Jewish Response, American Jewish Historical Society, Waltham, 02/24/1973 - 06/01/1973
  • Image of America in Caricature and Cartoon, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, 10/16/1975 - 12/14/1975; Fort Wayne Public Library, Fort Wayne, 02/02/1976 - 03/14/1976; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 10/13/1976 - 11/21/1976
  • In Good Conscience: The Radical Tradition in 20th-Century American Illustration, Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, 08/16/1992 - 09/27/1992; Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, 10/17/1992 - 12/26/1992; Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, 01/10/1993 - 02/21/1993
  • Ben Shahn and The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, 09/12/2001 - 12/16/2001

Related Works

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