Works by Ben Shahn in the exhibition, from early oil paintings to symbolical and allegoristic works, are donated by Ha Jung-woong. 

Ben Shahn is well known American artist, who experienced the most dramatic moments in American modern history as well as American art history, from the government-led art during the Great depression to the cold war and abstract expressionism. He is the representative artist of 'Social realism' in the Unite States. Not only painting, but he also worked with poster, illustration, and photography.

After 1940s, his work showed unidentified and complicated in context and form. Rather than political and reformist message, his work was extended to universal humanism. In formality, he used ancient Greek and Roman myths or Jewish letters to reveal symbolism, and accepted experimental nature and abstractness through portraits and masks in exaggerated color and size. 

Ben Shahn's art world represents art as historical evidence for the age, and pray for minorities, which are similar with Ha Jung-woong's collection. 

*image (left)
Ben Shahn
Portrait of Surgent Shriver, 1966
Watercolor, 66.2x50.5cm
© Estate of Ben Shahn / SACK, Seoul, VAGA, NY, 2014