BEN SHAHN (1898-1969) A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND. 1948. 44 3/4x29 inches, 113 3/4x73 3/4 cm. Amalgamated Lithographers of America, New York. Condition B: staining in background; repaired tears, restored losses and overpainting at edges and in image. Colors attenuated. Mounted on Japan. A Good Man is Hard to Find is not a traditional campaign poster; it is more of a political cartoon or 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 offering 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 message . . . 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 subtle 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, American Style 72, MoMA 23.1951.
