Aug 06, 2008 - Sale 2152

Sale 2152 - Lot 108

Price Realized: $ 1,320
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
BEN SHAHN (1898-1969) WE WANT PEACE / REGISTER VOTE. 1946.
41 3/4x26 3/4 inches, 106x68 cm.
Condition B+: repaired tears and restoration in margins and image; minor restored losses at edges and upper left corner; vertical and horizontal folds. Paper.
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 excercise one's right to vote." (Prescott p. 132). Prescott 157, Images of an Era 5.