The New Deal murals of Ben Shahn: The intersection of Jewish identity, social reform, and government patronage.

This dissertation discusses the eight murals that Ben Shahn (1898-1969) created under the auspices of the New Deal. It begins in 1933 when the federal projects were initiated and ends with Shahn's mural for the Social Security building in Washington, D.C., completed in 1942. This work examines Shahn's murals within the sociopolitical history of the New Deal, foregrounds the social events that Shahn depicted, and problematizes the issue of Jewish identity within the context of public murals. Shahn proposed eight mural projects, completing four; in addition to Social Security (1940-42), he painted a mural for the Jersey Homesteads, New Jersey on immigration and the labor movement (c.1936-38), Resources of America for the Bronx Central Post Office, New York (1938-39), and the Four Freedoms for the Woodhaven Station, New York post office (1939-41). Officials rejected Shahn's satirical Prohibition Era for the Central Park Casino, New York (c.1934), his The Great State of Wisconsin, for the planned community of Greendale, Wisconsin (c.1937), and his Four Freedoms, submitted to the St. Louis, Missouri post office competition (1939). Officials canceled his project for Riker's Island Penitentiary, New York (c.1933-35) as Shahn began work on site.Three questions motivate this study of Shahn's murals. These questions are about Jewish identity, social reform, and government patronage. How did Jewish identity relate to the subject matter of Shahn's murals, and the contemporary Jewish American experience? Which particular issues of social reform did Shahn present in his murals and how did these relate to New Deal initiatives? How did the procedures, opportunities, and policies of government art patronage intersect (encourage, censor, modify, or parallel) with Shahn's message of social reform and Jewish identity? What was the Jewish ethnic and sociopolitical content within Shahn's murals and how did he negotiate these messages within the New Deal art projects? This work locates these answers within the sociopolitical terrain of the 1930s and early 1940s to establish how Shahn's narratives express the particular situation of American Jews between the wars.Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of New York, 1997.School code: 0046