Classic Photographs
Classic Photographs
Auction Closed
October 3, 04:15 PM GMT
Estimate
5,000 - 7,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
BEN SHAHN
1898-1969
FAMILY OF NEGRO SHARECROPPER, LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
annotated '6019M4' in pencil on the reverse, 1935
6¼ by 9½ in. (15.9 by 24.1 cm.)
The photographer to John Cunningham, 1936
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Ben Shahn, Photographer: An Album from the Thirties (New York, 1973), pl. 80
This photograph comes originally from the collection of John Cunningham, who, in addition to his job as a manufacturer of store mannequins, was employed in 1936 by the Resettlement Administration (RA) as Chief Designer of the Department of Exhibitions. In this position, Cunningham planned traveling exhibitions featuring RA photographers such as Shahn, Walker Evans (Lots 143, 149, 150, and 152), and Dorothea Lange (Lots 144, 148, 154, and 159). Unlike Shahn's glossy prints made for reproduction, the photograph offered here is on the lush matte-surface, double-weight paper that the artist favored for exhibition.
Another print of Family of Negro Sharecropper is in the Ben Shahn Archive at the Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, M. A.