Ben Shahn, “Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco,” detail, from The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti series detail (1931–32), gouache on paper on board (all photos Isabella Segalovich/Hyperallergic) What makes a prophet? Whether or not we believe that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel had a direct line to God, many tend to think of them as individual people with radical and revolutionary ideas, standing proud and alone amid the decadence and conformity around them. But according to theologian Walter Brueggemann, the prophets did not work alone. They were simply the mouthpieces for the communities in which they lived, worked, cried, celebrated, and organized. Whether in spiritual texts or on the frontline of protests for human rights today, it is not from lone geniuses, but from “prophetic communities” that we have received the ideas that have shattered and reshaped the world. I imagine that the curators of Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity, currently on view at the Jewish Museum, would agree with me that this legendary leftist Jewish artist was a prophetic figure. But we would likely disagree about what that means. This rare exhibition succeeds in showing Shahn’s breadth and versatility, both in terms of his choice of medium and the huge range of subjects he took on. But despite acknowledging his decades of work as part of organized groups fighting for their vision of a racially and economically just world, the exhibit frames Shahn as a lone crusader against oppression — admirable but generally unobtrusive. He is made digestible, predictable, safe. Ben Shahn, “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti” (1931–32), tempera on canvas mounted on composition boardIt may not look that way at first. The show begins with his painting titled “The Passion of Sacco and Vanzetti” (1931–32) set against a blood-red wall. Three judges gaze down at the coffins containing the graying bodies of the two famous Italian anarchists, likely falsely accused of murder. Their faces are smug, mildly irritated, even bored. At once realistic and slightly distorted, Shahn’s thick, wavering lines retain his trademark scratchy texture and vibrant hues. Next to the painting is the quote from Shahn that supplies the show’s title: Nonconformity is the basic pre-condition of art, as it is the basic pre-condition of good thinking and therefore of growth and greatness in a people. The degree of nonconformity present — and tolerated — in a society might be looked upon as a symptom of its state of health.The rooms that follow display a delightful sample of Shahn’s work: posters he created while directing the Graphic Arts Division at the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and participating in the antifascist efforts of the Office of War Information (OWI); photos he took for the Resettlement Administration/Farm Security Administration (RA/FSA) showing the plight and strength of American farmers during the Dust Bowl; and political cartoons for the Progressive Party poking fun at politicians. These are presented alongside an impressive swath of his paintings, from surreal dreamscapes memorializing the horrors of the Holocaust to flame-engulfed monsters that raise alarm about the dangers of nuclear warfare to bittersweet reflections on the beauty of everyday life. The final gallery shows his late-in-life foray into Hebrew lettering, including illustrations of classic Jewish texts, which at once offer tender comfort to their viewers and invoke the cosmic eternity of God’s power. Ben Shahn, “Study for Great State of Wisconsin mural” (c. 1937), gouache, ink, and pencil on illustration boardBen Shahn, close-up view of “Study for Great State of Wisconsin mural”But we get barely a glimmer of one of Shahn’s most resplendent eras: the New Deal murals. The exhibit includes just one small painting, a study for a mural entitled “The Great State of Wisconsin,” with no context, or explanation that the mural proposal was rejected (it is unclear why).Only in the catalog do we learn that the artist worked alongside Diego Rivera, who said Shahn’s works “possess the necessary qualities, accessibility, and power to make them important to the proletariat.” Specifically, Shahn worked in 1933 on Rivera’s “ill-fated” Rockefeller Center mural “Man at a Crossroads,” destroyed by Nelson Rockefeller when he found out it contained a portrait of Vladimir Lenin. But the catalog couches even this explicitly Marxist moment as just another step in Shahn’s career, describing him learning “composition and fresco technique” and witnessing the “breakdown of the professional working relationship between artists and patrons of opposing political ideologies.” It reads more like a resume than a historic moment in corporate America’s appeasement of fascist forces in the year Hitler came to power. Ben Shahn, assisted by John Ormai, “Harvesting Wheat [study for the west wall of The Meaning of Social Security mural, Washington, DC]” (1941), buon fresco on wallboardA study for Shahn’s “The Meaning of Social Security” shows a single farmer, leaning on his machinery during a short break from his work. It is a beautiful painting — the man, content with the fruits of his labor, smiles subtly, framed by the soft leaves of an orange tree. But by singling out this study, the show effectively separates this man from his community. Here, the farmer is valued not for his solidarity with his fellow workers, but only for what he can produce alone. Over and over in this exhibition, in ways that often seem contrary to Shahn’s apparent intent, the individual is privileged over the community. Gone are the receding crowds of immigrants and the long lines of workers that exude a sense of power. In giving these masterworks only a brief mention, we not only lose a sense of Shahn’s development as an artist, from the smooth contours of a New Deal muralist to the coarse fields of color, sharp angles, and wily humor that defines his work, but we also lose a sense of the tradition out of which he grew. Shahn appears to be pigeonholed into a kind of socially acceptable Cold War liberalism. (The catalog even implies that one of his paintings supported the new Israeli state, when he said nothing of the sort. He rarely commented on Israel’s existence, a powerful statement in its own right.) Like the subjects of his artwork, Shahn, too, gets removed from his communal and organizational context. He is simply a “nonconformist.” Presented this way, it is difficult to understand Shahn’s rise and fall. Though often forgotten today, he was one of the most sought-after artists of the mid-20th century. He illustrated for CBS, Time, Fortune, and Harper’s, had solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art, and even represented the United States in the Venice Biennale. His fall from grace, left mostly a mystery in this exhibit, is explained by critic Ariella Budick in the Financial Times: the FBI “placed him under surveillance, CBS added his name to a blacklist, and, in 1959, he was summoned to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.” Receiving a “chilly treatment” from “collectors and ideologues” who preferred outwardly apolitical Abstract Expressionism, he “became increasingly marginalised, his slow fade-out only briefly interrupted by the raft of obituaries and posthumous praise that appeared on his death in 1969.” Ben Shahn, “East Side Soap Box,” detail (1936), gouache on paper. Translation of the Yiddish: “Nature has given every [worker] an appetite, but our bosses took away from us the key [to our sustenance].”The catalog bafflingly claims that “Shahn’s figurative realism and social content served as a symbol of U.S. freedom in the early Cold War—as much as abstract art did,” when the truth was that Abstract Expressionism was actively promoted by the wealthy and powerful, including the CIA, to stamp out political art like Shahn’s. The artist himself minced no words: “If Social Realism seeks to impress upon art a rigid aesthetic of subject matter and point of view, there also exists another opposite camp which seeks with equal rigidity to exile from art all meaning—to keep it free from any content whatsoever. That is the camp of Pedantism.” Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity offers those without prior knowledge of leftist Jewish art a rare gift: a large-scale retrospective of one of the greatest suppressed artists of the 20th century. But they will leave the Jewish Museum with an incomplete and skewed understanding of his legacy. They might assume that he was a singular figure with a completely unique perspective, rather than a particularly gifted luminary within a rich and continuing line of fellow Jewish political artists, from the well known, like El Lissitsky, to the little discussed, like Selma Freeman. Many of these artists were influenced by Jewish folk stories and aesthetics (the likes of which were practiced by Shahn’s own anti-Czarist and woodcarving father), which translated splendidly into political cartoons, posters, and murals that called for justice for working people around the world. It is to this prophetic community, transcending time and national barriers, that Ben Shahn properly belongs. If we are to learn from his work — as well we should — we must understand that “nonconformity” is not, and cannot be, a solo venture. Ben Shahn, “Liberation” (1945), gouache on boardBen Shahn, “Stop H Bomb Tests” (1960), color screen printBen Shahn, “Today Is the Birthday of the World” (1955), ink on paper. Translation of the Hebrew: “Today the world is born; today shall stand before You. All the beings of the cosmos, whether as Your children or as Your servants. If as Your children, show them mercy, like a mother toward her children. If as Your servants, then our eyes are turned toward You in great anticipation. That You may be gracious, rendering judgment for good, on our behalf, as clear as light of day.” (Recited on Rosh Hashanah, origin unknown)Ben Shahn, On Nonconformity continues at the Jewish Museum (1109 Fifth Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan) through October 12. The exhibition was organized by Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, and adapted by the Jewish Museum, and curated by Laura Katzman in collaboration with Stephen Brown.