Ben Shahn

The Downtown Gallery, New York
Private Collection, New York (acquired from the above, June 20, 1945)
By descent in the family of the above to the present owner

Brighton, England, Brighton Art Gallery; Cambridge, The Regional Office of the Arts Council of Great Britain; Bristol, City Art Gallery, Ben Shahn, May 3-July 12, 1947
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Ben Shahn Retrospective Exhibition, September 30-January 4, 1948, no. 47.917
San Francisco, Museum of Art, Ben Shahn, August, 1948
Cambridge, Massachusetts, The Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, Ben Shahn Retrospective Exhibition, December 4, 1956-January 19, 1957
Amsterdam, Stedelijik Museum; Brussels, Palais Des Beaux-Arts; Rome, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna; Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Ben Shahn, December 22, 1961-June 24, 1962, no. 19, p. 7, illustrated
Houston, Sakowitz Festival of the Arts, October 3-17, 1965, no. 95, illustrated
Trenton, New Jersey State Museum, Ben Shahn:  A Memorial Retrospective Exhibition, September 20-November 16, 1969, no. 48
New York, Nardin Galleries, Ben Shahn, February 27-March 24, 1979, no. 31
Madrid, National Library of Madrid, Ben Shahn, March 27-May 15, 1984
Houston, Pembroke Gallery, Ben Shahn, February 27-April 5, 1986

The work is tempera on paper mounted to board; the mount is original to the work as all the exhibition labels are pasted to the back of it. It is in very good condition and the colors retain their original freshness.
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Through the 1930s and 1940s Ben Shahn’s art epitomized the views of the American left with its emphasis on social injustice and human suffering.  He exhibited exemplary patriotism during World War II, being in step with its anti-fascist cause, but he was profoundly shaken by the atomic bombings in Japan, events which propelled him into the pacifist camp.  This 1945 work, which depicts a fallen GI on the Normandy beaches, expresses his revulsion for war of all kinds.

Shahn’s fame grew in the early 1960s when The Museum of Modern Art organized a travelling exhibition of his work for four major European museums.  The show was curated by James Thrall Soby, who sought out Death on the Beach to be among the 44 paintings in the exhibition, which altogether comprised 130 works of art (Soby had also selected the work for the 1947 Shahn retrospective he curated for MoMA). Its simple composition and direct, unequivocal message characterize Shahn's best work. 

Widely exhibited from 1947 onwards, Death on the Beach has remained in a single private collection for the last 67 years.