Art © Ben Shahn / Licensed by VAGA, New York
On view
Print and Drawings
Howard Mele Gallery
Howard Mele Gallery
Sacco and Vanzetti: In the Courtroom Cage,
1931–32
Ben Shahn, 1898–1969; born Kaunas, Russian Empire (Lithuania); died New York, NY
x1965-69
Faces play a key role in this dramatic scene, one of twenty-three works that Shahn devoted to the famous trial of the Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were executed in 1927 for armed-robbery murders in Massachusetts that they probably did not commit. Called The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, this narrative series established Shahn’s international reputation as a socially and politically engaged artist. Shahn based the composition on a press photograph of Vanzetti, to the left, and Sacco in the prisoner’s dock with Sacco’s wife, Rosina, leaning in from the other side of the “cage.” In addition to altering the source photograph by widening the space between the two men and exaggerating the size of their heads, Shahn created the immediacy of an eyewitness trial sketch by painting quickly, blending wet media in the highlights and shadows.
Information
Title
Sacco and Vanzetti: In the Courtroom Cage
Dates
1931–32
Maker
Medium
Watercolor and gouache and pen and black ink
Dimensions
21.5 × 25.7 cm (8 7/16 × 10 1/8 in.)
frame: 43.2 × 55.9 × 1.3 cm (17 × 22 × 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Dr. Walter E. Rothman
Object Number
x1965-69
Place Made
North America, United States, New York, New York
Signatures
Signed in brush and black ink, lower center: Ben Shahn
Culture
Type
Materials
Subject
Edith Breckinridge, Los Angeles, CA; Dr. Walter E. Rothman (1898-1966), San Francisco, CA; gifted to the Princeton University Art Museum, 1965.
- The passion of Sacco--Vanzetti: Ben Shahn: exhibition of gouaches: April 5th to 17th, 1932, (New York, NY: Downtown Gallery, 1932)., no. 6
- Martin H. Bush, Ben Shahn: The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University, 1968)., p. 19 (illus.)
- Ben Shahn: a retrospective exhibition: New Jersey State museum..., September 20-November 16, 1969, (Trenton, NJ: New Jersey State Museum, 1969). , no. 12 (illus.)
- Combattimento per un’immagine: Fotografi e pittori: Torino, Galleria civica d’arte moderna, marzo-aprile 1973, (Torino: Amici dell’arte contemporanea, 1973)., unpaginated [card indicates illustrated "a bit more than half way through the volume"]
- Kenneth W. Prescott, Ben Shahn: a retrospective, 1898-1969, the Jewish Museum, New York, October 20, 1976 through January 2, 1977, (New York: The Museum, 1976)., cat. no. 16; p. 29 (illus.)
- Jean-Luc Daval, Avant-garde art, 1914-1939, (Geneva: Skira; New York: Rizzoli, 1980). , p. 177 (illus.)
- Merle Schipper, 1931 America: the artist's view: an exhibition, (Reno, NV: The Museum, 1982)., listed on p. 20
- Kenneth W. Prescott, ベンシャーン展 (Ben Shahn retrospective exhibition), (Tōkyō: Ben Shān Ten Katarogu Iinkai, 1991). , cat. no. 38 (illus.); p. 37 (color illus.); listed in checklist p. 155
- Frances K. Pohl, Ben Shahn, (San Francisco, CA: Pomegranate ArtBooks, 1993)., p. 42-45; p. 42 (illus.)
- Alejandro Anreus, Ben Shahn and the passion of Sacco and Vanzetti, (Jersey City, NJ: Jersey City Museum, 2001).,
- John Wilmerding et al., American Art in the Princeton University Art Museum: volume 1: drawings and watercolors, (Princeton: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT; London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 178, cat. no. 42; p. 179 (illus.); p. 317, checklist no. 440
