The Penguin modern painters

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.