Sheriff During Strike, Morgantown, West Virginia

Artist Ben Shahn (American, born Lithuania, 1898 - 1969)

Date1935

MediumGelatin silver print

DimensionsImage: 7 1/8 x 9 1/2 inches (18.1 x 24.13 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.4369

InscribedSigned/Titled/Dated Signed in artist's hand "Ben Shahn 1935 Morgantown, W. Va. Strike" Back of Mount In Pen

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DescriptionImage of a sheriff (from the rear).Gallery Label

Gallery Label

Though he was trained as a painter, Ben Shahn also worked as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration during the mid-1930s to document the effects of the Depression. Shahn’s photographs for the FSA were often colored by his political sentiments. Combining his compositional talents as a painter with the technical capacities of his favorite camera—a 35mm Leica with a right-angle viewer—Shahn produced this image, one of his best-known from the period. Shahn’s photograph—steeped in personal opinion— suggests a confrontation between law and labor.

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