All Ben Shahn Quotes
- Of course I realize that photography is not the technical facility as much as it is the eye, and this decision that one makes for… Course
- Now, when I came on to Washington to begin my job, I was so interested in photography at that time that I really would have… Artistic
- Now, my knowledge of photography was terribly limited. Funny
- Every great historic change has been based on nonconformity, has been bought either with the blood or with the reputation of nonconformists. Antiwar
- I feel, having the choices I had, I felt I had more control over my own medium than I did over photography. Choices
- To abstract is to draw out the essence of a matter. To abstract in art is to separate certain fundamentals from irrelevant material which surrounds… Abstract
- An ametuer is an artist who supports himself with outside jobs which enable him to paint. A professional is someone whose wife works to enable… Artist
- The time when I had desire to go to the United States I didn't have a penny. It was in the middle of the depression,… Depression
- I believe that if it were left to artists to choose their own labels, most would choose none. Artist
- How do you paint yellow wheat against a yellow sky? You paint it jet black. Black
- All art is based on non-conformity. All
- I became interested in photography when I found my own sketching was inadequate. Became
- I was primarily interested in people, and people in action, so that I did nothing photographically in the sense of doing buildings for their own… Action
- When you talk about war on poverty it doesn't mean very much; but if you can show to some degree this sort of thing then… Deal
- It is the mission of art to remind man from time to time that he is human, and the time is ripe, just now, today,… Art
- We tried to present the ordinary in an extraordinary manner. But that's the paradox because the only thing extraordinary about it was that it was… All
- If you're going to be an artist, all life is your subject. And all your experience is part of your art. A youngster told me… All
- I love chaos.... It's the poetic element in a dull and ordered world. Chaos
- Art almost always has its ingredient of impudence, its flouting of established authority, so that it may substitute its own authority and its own enlightenment. Almost Always
- It is an intimately communicative affair between the painter and his painting, a conversation back and forth, the painting telling the painter even as it… Affair
- I was brought in, not in the photographic department at all, I was brought in on a thing called Special Skills. I was to do… All
- The artist is likely to be looked upon with some uneasiness by the more conservative members of society. Artist
- It may be a point of great pride to have a Van Gogh on the living room wall, but the prospects of having Van Gogh… Art
- Form is the shape of content... Content
- Forms in art arise from the impact of idea upon material... so that thinking and belief and attitudes may endure as actual things. Actual