NYCHS caption: The above image, from the Harvard University Art Museums' Ben Shahn at Harvard. web site, is the computerized creation of Ben Shan's rejected Rikers mural. The projection is based on his prepatory sketches and notes.

From the spring of 1934 through the winter of 1935 [Ben] Shahn worked on an ambitious public art project -- a mural design for the newly constructed penitentiary on Rikers Island, a four hundred-acre plot of land situated in the East River, between Queens and the Bronx.

Shahn collaborated with the painter and photographer Lou Block, and the Temporary Emergency Relief Administration provided funding.

NYCHS caption: The above image, from the Harvard University Art Museums' Ben Shahn at Harvard. web site, is the computerized mural's east wall depicting Shahn-envisioned scenes of archaic penology.

Choosing a long corridor in the main building as his site, Shahn developed a didactic scheme on the hotly debated issue of prison reform.

Block, meanwhile, designed a series of panels about religious charity for the penitentiary chapels.

The Catalogue

The catalogue -- by Deborah Martin Kao, Laura Katzman & Jenna Webster -- was published for the Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times exhibition at Harvard University's Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, and printed by Yale University Press. The National Endowment for the Humanities provided major support for the exhibition. Publication of the catalogue -- designed by Richard Hendel and set in Monotype Garamond type by Eric M. Brooks -- was made possible in part by a grant from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation. It is copyrighted the President and Fellows of Harvard College who reserve all rights thereunder. To order, visit Yale University Press and use 0300083157 as the ISBN search term.

In preparation, the two artists studied law and penology and drew on the expertise of local sociologists and prison officials. They also visited correctional facilities in and around New York City.

Shahn photographed inmates at the model reformatory in New Hampton [in Orange County, New York] and the antiquated, overcrowded Blackwell's Island Penitentiary on Welfare Island (renamed Roosevelt Island in 1973), just south of Rikers Island . . .

NYCHS caption: The above image, reduced from one on the Harvard University Art Museums' Ben Shahn at Harvard, is a Shahn photo taken behind bars during a visit to the old Blackwell's Island penitentiary.

To photograph within penal institutions, Shahn was required to obtain permission frorn a number of authorities, as well as the prisoners themselves. . . .

Shahn recorded gregarious young men who posed for his camera, as well as prisoners absorbed in thought, reading newspapers, even creating art.

He also focused on inmates learning useful trades: masonry, metalwork, and farming.

These images are engaging portraits, depicting inmates as wayward sons anol brothcrs.

As a believer in prison reform, Shahn thus rebuked the prevalent "rouges' gallery" classification of criminials, seeking instead to reveal how prisoncrs deserved assistance and rehabilitation. . . .

NYCHS caption: The above image, reduced from one on the Harvard University Art Museums' Ben Shahn at Harvard, shows the inmate exercise yard of the old Blackwell's Island penitentiary, looking toward the Queensboro Bridge. Note handball boards in left foreground and background.

. . . .a number of young who posed so willingly at the New Hampton reformatory populate scenes in the mural that delineate the social benefits of providing inmates with education, vocational training and medical care.

In contrast, the destitute men the artist had photographed on the sidewalks of Manhattan formed the basis for the opposing portions of the mural, which illuminated how poverty and desperation lead to crime . . . .

In spite of extensive support Shahn's commanding mural design received at City hall and the municipal Department of Correction, the conservative Municipal Art Commission dismissed the proposal in February, 1935. The rejection immediately became a cause celebre. . . .

[NOTE: The full text can be found in the Ben Shahn's New York: The Photography of Modern Times Exhibition Catalogue from which the above was excerpted. NYCHS appreciates being permitted to post these exhibition materials excerpts. Harvard College President and Fellows retain the copyright and reserve all the rights thereunder. For more, including the larger original digital versions -- between 100Kb and 600Kb -- of the images shown here much reduced, visit Harvard University Art Museums' Ben Shahn at Harvard. To order, visit Yale University Press and use 0300083157 as the ISBN search term.]