[CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT] SHAHN, Ben

James Chaney

[New York: Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee of the American Civil Liberties Union, 1965]. First Edition. One of 300 copies included as part of Shahn's Nine Drawings Portfolio. Original photo-offset lithograph, with text and illustration printed in black and burnt orange on white deckle-edged Japanese paper, measuring 43cm x 56cm (17" x 22"); signed by Shahn in plate toward lower right corner. Some very subtle toning to extremities, else Fine.

"James Chaney, a Negro, was one of the three young civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi during the summer of 1964. He had attended high school in Meridan, Mississippi, and worked as a plasterer until he attended a CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) Training School in Ohio where he met Michael Schwerner. Chaney then became an aide in the Negro Community Center opened in Meridan by Schwerner, his wife, and Andrew Goodman. This portrait of the twenty-one-year-old Chaney shows him with a slight moustache. The large eyes and frozen expression give an impression of impending doom" (Prescott, p.96). Shahn created nearly identical "James Chaney" lithographs for his 1965 Human Relations Portfolio (limited to 300 numbered and signed copies) and his Nine Drawings Portfolio issued the same year. PRESCOTT 110. 90286.

Price: $450.00

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