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Ben Shahn
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. I Have A Dream, Black Portrait Head Civil Rights Activist

1981

About the Item

BEN SHAHN - Martin Luther King, Jr. - I Have A Dream is a limited run, plate signed, commemorative lithograph recreated after the wood engraving by Stefan Martin(1936 - 1994), an American wood engraver and illustrator. Printed using traditional lithography methods in 1981 on fine quality, archival Somerset printmaking paper, 100% acid free. Features a striking black and white portrait head portraying the fine wood engraved image of civil rights leader - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. along with text from his famed inspirational, I’ve been to the mountaintop’ speech. Printed signatures of Ben Shahn in dark reddish brown ink and Martin Luther King Jr. in gray ink. (see Photos) Artists copyright text printed on lower left corner. Lithograph is unframed, in excellent condition. Print Size - 25.25" x 19" Year published - 1981 Edition 500 Copyright Estate of Ben Shahn/ wood engraving by Stefan Martin. About the artist BEN SHAHN - Ben Shahn immigrated to the United States as a child and was apprenticed to a lithographer after finishing elementary school. In the 1920s, he studied at New York University and City College, and very briefly at the National Academy of Design. Shahn's first major success came with the 1932 exhibition of his series The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti. Shahn once said that he paints two things, "what I love and what I abhor," and during the Depression years his scenes of children playing in concrete urban parks, and of miners and construction workers engaged in their trades, reflect his admiration for the working American and his abhorrence of injustice and oppression. Throughout the 1930s Shahn worked for various government programs, and when the United States entered World War II, he joined the Graphic Arts Division of the Office of War Information, although only two of the many posters he designed were published. In the 1940s, Shahn turned to what he called personal realism." His late work is often symbolic, allegorical, or religious and reflects his belief that "if we are to have values, a spiritual life, a culture, these things must find their imagery and their interpretation through the arts." Artist bio - Virginia M. Mecklenburg Modern American Realism: The Sara Roby Foundation Collection (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the National Museum of American Art, 1987)
  • Creator:
    Ben Shahn (1898-1969, American)
  • Creation Year:
    1981
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 25.25 in (64.14 cm)Width: 19 in (48.26 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Mint condition, unframed, never been mounted, plate signed Ben Shahn and Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Gallery Location:
    Union City, NJ
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU832311879762
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