Ben Shahn

A collection of old and new words, including those to be said in singing moods, words for times of day, and rude names for nitwits. Defines such words as gongoozler, tantony, and oosse.

Between 1931 and 1932, painter Ben Shahn created a series of 23 gouaches and temperas on the infamous trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. This catalogue accompanies an exhibition at the Jersey City Museum presenting all the paintings in existence - 17 in all - from this series.

This excellent overview of Shahn's complicated life and work is extensively illustrated with photographs and reproductions, in black-and-white and color, of work from all phases of his 50-year career. Pohl, the author of Ben Shahn: New Deal Artist in a Cold War Climate, 1947-1954 ( LJ 8/89), details the early impact of the Sacco and Vanzetti case on Shahn's attitudes and examines the sociopolitical activism that continued throughout his life. Accompanying the illustrations are selections from Shahn's extensive writings on art and life, as well as an wide-ranging secondary source bibliography (compiled by Stephen Lee Taller) that includes writings by and interviews with the artist, exhibition reviews, and, most interestingly, a section on Shahn's illustrations. Recommended for collections of modern and American art. --Martin R. Kalfatovic, Natl. Museum of American Art/Natl. Portrait Gallery Lib., Smithsonian Inst., Washington, D.C.

Inspired by Ben Shahs' childhood memories, his time spent with the Jews of the island of Djerba off the Tunisian coast and his own mature artistic vision. Color illustrations with text in Hebrew and English with an English introduction and historical note by Cecil Roth on the significance of the ritual in Jewish culture and history.

Over one hundred pictures selected from the collection of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard.

"On October 15, 1894, Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery captain attached to the French General Staff, was arrested on charges of having betrayed his country by selling military secrets to the Germans. He was convicted of treason by military court-martial and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island, but over the next 12 years a small group of human rights supporters was able to clear him and identify the real traitor, and Dreyfus was pardoned. The most sensational case in French history, it pitted national security interests against individual rights, exposed the anti-Semitism that permeated France, and influenced the course of Europe as it rumbled toward the first of two world wars. This work provides the first comprehensive examination of this incident for students, including a narrative historical overview, essays on major aspects of the event, lengthy biographical profiles of the key players, the text of important primary documents contemporary to the time, a timeline of the event and list of French presidents and ministers of war during the Affair, a glossary of terms, and a bibliography of print and electronic sources and films suitable for students. This is an idea resource for student use."--BOOK JACKET.