Page 128 - Swann Galleries - Modernist Posters - Sale 2314 - May 13, 2013

BEN SHAHN (1898-1969)
151 ● WE WANT PEACE / REGISTER - VOTE. 1946.
411/4x26 3/4 inches, 105x68 cm. L.I.P. & B.A., New York.
Condition B+: unobtrusive vertical and horizontal folds; pin holes in margins and corners. Framed.
Based on a painting entitled Hunger, this image was “used by the CIO in a voter registration drive.
[And] it represents, perhaps, the best of Shahn’s poster work. One cannot soon erase the memory of
the hollow-eyed young face begging for peace. Nowhere is Shahn’s genius for drawing more evident
than in the thrust of the pleading hand . . . Using the image of this child in the context of an election
campaign seems to say that in a democracy the first step toward healing the ravages of war is to exercise
one’s right to vote” (Prescott p. 132). Prescott 157, Images of an Era 5, Takashimaya 238.
[1,500/2,000]
BEN SHAHN (1898-1969)
152 ● WARNING! INFLATION MEANS DEPRESSION. 1946.
403/4x27 3/4 inches, 1031/2x70 1/2 cm. L.I.P. & B.A., New York.
Condition A- / B+: unobtrusive vertical and horizontal folds; minor restoration in image.
This poster is based on a photograph Shahn took during the 1930s while traveling through Arkansas,”of
a farmer, whose seeming integrity and strength greatly impressed Shahn” (Prescott p. 132). It is a
troubling image of a working man faced with the Great Depression, yet with a bright, yellow solution:
“Register - Vote.” Prescott 156. [1,200/1,800]
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