Title: Haggadah.
Artist: Ben Shahn (1898-1969).
Medium: Lithograph, stencil and handcoloring, 1966.
Edition c.300.
Image size 13 7/8 x 21 5/8" (35.2 x 55.4 cm).
Reference: #70 in "The Complete Graphic Works of Ben Shahn" by Kenneth Wade Prescott.

Description: Signed in black brush lower right, below the red-orange chop. Printed by Mourlot in Paris. This print is identical to the frontispiece of the 1966 deluxe edition of Shahn's 1965 "Haggadah for Passover." It is one of the limited number of impressions pulled without the centerfold for distribution as an individual print.

This piece was printed at the Imprimerie Mourlot in Paris. The printed (lithograph) portions consist of the black and gray lines of the menorah and the black calligraphy. Stencils were used for the yellow calligraphy and the branching design. Gold leaf and other colors were applied by hand.

Ben Shahn - printmaker, painter, muralist - was born in Kovno, Lithuania in 1898. He arrived in the United States in 1908 with his family and settled in Brooklyn. He was apprenticed to a lithographer after finishing elementary school at the age of fourteen. As an apprentice, he spent long hours of work grinding stones and lettering stones. He once stated that he made "thousands and thousands of letters." It is fortunate that he liked the history of alphabets because he would use them throughout his artistic career. Shahn believed in hard work and craftsmanship - qualities that would stay with him throughout his career.

Shahn's first published lithographs were in 1931 and were issued in portfolios. His first individual print was produced in 1936. He is well known for his social imagery of the Civil Rights Movement and posters showing the horrors of WWII. He produced over 249 prints during his life.

Very good condition.