The Dreyfus Affair. The Ben Shahn Prints.

(SHANH, BEN).

Crossroads

Cincinnati

1984

Numbered “LVIII” from the edition of 60 numbered copies, printed on Grandes Arches handmade vergé paper. Eight large color pochoir prints by Shahn, each loose in descriptive paper sleeves as issued. With accompanying volume of essays.

The first collected publication of Shahn’s 1930s Dreyfus prints. In the 1930’s Ben Shahn and his friend Walker Evans made plans for an exhibit, and Shahn was drawn to the subject of the Dreyfus Affair - the scandalous turn-of-the-century French trial of a Jewish officer that prompted Zola’s legendary J’Accuse! (1898.) Shahn later recalled: “I set to work and presented the leading malefactors of the case, the defenders and of course Dreyfus himself. Under each portrait I lettered in my best lithographic script a long or short legend setting forth the role which the original of the portrait had played in the celebrated affair. What had been undertaken lightly became very significant in my eyes. Within the Dreyfus pictures I could see a new avenue of expression opening up.” (Shape of Content pp. 36-7.)