Significant Events:
1930 — Meets Walker Evans.They met at Shahn's patron's bouse, Dr. Iago Galdson. According to Evans:
I was, with Ben, by far the brightest man in the room. Ben noticed it too. Ben took a fancy to me and I think when I left he decided to leave too, walked with me a bit. . . He was too forward, I was more reserved and usually respected it in others.
from Walker Evans by James R. Mellow (113)
1935 — On loan from the Special Skills Department, begins photographing the South for the Resettlement Administration Historical Section. Shahn deeply influences Roy Stryker's view of photography.To me there are two areas of photography. There is the kind of thing Paul Strand does or Walker Evans and that is with an 8x10 (inch) camera, getting on the thing and divulging texture and details the human eye almost cannot see. Then there is the thing they say Cartier-Bresson does of people in movement . . . see and those are the two great directions for me.
Doud interview with Ben Shahn, 14 April 1964 cited in "The Road South"
Ben Shahn by Walker Evans, 1930
Ben Shahn, Arkansas
