BEN SHAHN Profile Study of a Dead Boy (Hightstown Mural Project)<>.
Brush and ink and wash on smooth cream wove paper, circa 1937. 267x305 mm; 10½x12 inches. Signed in ink, lower right. Ex-collection the artist, Kennedy Galleries, New York, and Hooks-Epstein Galleries, Houston, with the labels on the frame back.
The Farm Security Administration commissioned Shahn to paint a mural for the community center (now the Roosevelt Public School) in 1937, shortly after the cooperative known as Jersey Homsteads which is now the town of Roosevelt (in Hightstown Township) was formed. The mural, which traces the journey of European immigrants to America, was completed by 1938.
Roosevelt (then Jersey Homesteads) opened in 1936 with the assistance of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal subsistence program. Established as a cooperative village occupying 1200 acres, Jersey Homsesteads was zoned for 200 family homes (totalling around 1000 inhabitants). Families wishing to become members of the cooperative were selected on their character and trade skills and had to subscribe $500 (the total estimated cost for building Jersey Homesteads was $600,000, of which the government contributed $500,000 and the 200 homesteaders provided $100,000). Eventually, only 120 of the 200 Bauhaus style homes were purchased by homsteaders and the rest had to be put up for rent to cover the cost for the project.
Shahn moved to Jersey Homsteads, by then Roosevelt, as a renter in 1939, with his second wife, Bernarda Bryson. He lived there until his death in 1969.
