10
A Very
Wisconsin
Accession
Ben Shan’s Detail Study for
the Great State of Wisconsin
has a home at the Chazen
thanks to support from the
Chazen Advisory Council in
honor of Andrew Stevens,
the Chazen Museum of Art
General Endowment Fund,
the D. Frederick Baker
Fund, and David Prosser.
Ben Shahn was an important American painter committed state of Wisconsin,” which comes down to us as Shahn’s
to the cause of social realism. His themes often included intended title for the piece. The contentious events that
leftist subject matter, including a 23-panel series of gave rise to the quote, and the further contention that
paintings entitled The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti and a resulted when the class of 1910 presented the plaque to
set of 13 murals inspired by a Walt Whitman poem. His the university is well documented in Theodore Herfurth’s
work as a muralist during Roosevelt’s New Deal included historical inquiry into the origin of the quote (available at
a series of murals in Jersey Homesteads (now the borough http://digicoll.library. wisc.edu/WIReader/WER1035-2.
of Roosevelt) in Monmouth County, New Jersey, that html). The work’s close ties to the history of the University
celebrated the lives, work, and troubles of the Jewish of Wisconsin and to the state make it a touchstone for
garment workers who were to be resettled in a planned discussing those values that the University is dedicated to.
cooperative community there.
“Acquiring this work by Ben Shahn was an easy decision
This study was made as a proposal for another planned for the museum,” said Director Amy Gilman. “Its
community that was built during the same period in connection to the history of the University of Wisconsin is
Wisconsin. Greendale was built southwest of Milwaukee special and profound. When adding to an already
as part of a US Department of Agriculture project to plan distinguished collection, you always hope to find
and build “Greenbelt Communities.” The mural was not something, such as this work, that is both an exceptional
accepted, but in Shahn’s plan would have celebrated the object on its own, and that has such rich potential for
close relationship between farmers, city workers, the connections with our visitors. This was the last
university, and the legislature. Of particular interest is the acquisition Distinguished Curator of Prints, Drawings,
figure Shahn planned to place above the door frame who and Photographs Drew Stevens proposed before his
holds a document which almost exactly quotes the “sifting retirement, and is a perfect example of the thoughtful
and winnowing” credo that appears on a plaque on the approach Drew took towards the Chazen’s works on paper
capitol-facing exterior of Bascom Hall. On the plaque the collection throughout his 33 years of service here. Thank
pursuit of truth is carried out at “the great state university you to the generous donors and council members who
of Wisconsin,” in Shahn’s text it is the goal of “the great made gifts towards this purchase.”
Ben Shahn, (American, b. Russia, 1898 - 1969) Detail Study for
Great State of Wisconsin mural, ca. 1937, tempera and ink on
panel, 15 x 18 1/2 in., museum funds purchase, 2018.37