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BEN SHAHN (1898-1969)
123 • A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND. 1948.
46x30 inches, 117x76 cm. Amalgamated Lithographers of America, New York.
Condition B+ / B: creases in margins and image; tears at edges; tape in top corners, on recto and verso.
Paper.
Born in Lithuania in 1898, Shahn immigrated to America with his family when he was 8 years old.
From almost the beginning of his artistic career, Shahn’s work was political in nature. “A Good Man is
Hard to Find” is not a traditional campaign poster; it is more of a political cartoon or a caricature,
touting neither of the men depicted, but rather the unseen, third Progressive Party candidate. “His
intent was to present the two major parties as indistinguishable, with only the Progressive Party offer-
ing the voters a bid for change” (Prescott p. 133). “The two candidates [Dewey and Truman], on
whom Shahn obviously looked with equal suspicion, are ingeniously placed, Dewey atop a piano and
Truman at its keyboard, before sheets of music whose titles are a vital part of the artist’s satirical mes-
sage . . . Details are handled with remarkable acuteness: the strained cordiality of Dewey’s smile . . . the
wrinkles in Truman’s trousers and the amateurish flourish with which his right hand strikes a chord;
the definition of both candidates’ feet. Yet distortions and elisions are just as important, as in the
aggrandizement of the two politicians’ heads and the subtly way in which Truman’s eyeglasses are left
blank and the teeth of both men are frozen in bright evenness. This is an image intended to provoke
laughter regardless of one’s political convictions” (Soby, Graphic Arts, p. 17). Prescott p. 158, Images
of an Era 8, Posters American Style 72.
[4,000/6,000]