Missouri State Seal (Design #3 for St. Louis Post Office Mural)

Details

BEN SHAHN (1898-1969)
Missouri State Seal (Design #3 for St. Louis Post Office Mural)
signed 'Ben Shahn' (lower center)—inscribed 'Design No. 3' (in the upper margin)
tempera on board
image, 4 ½ x 14 ½ in. (11.4 x 36.8 cm.);
overall, 5 ½ x 15 ½ in. (14 x 39.4 cm.)
Painted in 1939.

Provenance

Private collection, Japan.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1970s.

Literature

D.L. Linden, Ben Shahn's New Deal Murals: Jewish Identity in the American Scene, Detroit, Michigan, 2015, pp. 97-98, fig. 44, illustrated.
H. Greenfeld, Ben Shahn: An Artist's Life, Lexington, Massachusetts, 2019, n.p.

Exhibited

New York, Kennedy Galleries, Inc., Ben Shahn, October 12-November 2, 1968, n.p., no. 16, illustrated.
Tokyo, National Museum of Modern Art, Ben Shahn, May 21-July 5, 1970, n.p., no. 17, illustrated.
Tokyo, Tōkyū Gallery, Yasuo Kuniyoshi/Ben Shahn, August 28-September 16, 1981, n.p., no. 70, illustrated.

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Lot Essay

The present work is one of nine mural designs that Ben Shahn submitted for the Treasury Section art program's competition to decorate the St. Louis Post Office lobby in 1939. The works were rejected, as they "contained political distractions," with other designs in the group focusing on themes of immigration and constitutional freedoms amidst the Nazi Regime taking hold in Germany (D.L. Linden, "Ben Shahn's New Deal Murals: Jewish Identity in the American Scene," in Common Man, Mythic Vision: The Paintings of Ben Shahn, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1998, p. 59).

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