Photo of the Week #282

January 25, 2024
This photograph was made during Ben Shahn’s time working for the Farm Security Administration, documenting poverty in the American South. Shahn is best known as a painter and graphic designer, and this picture demonstrates how his eye for painting and composition carried over to his work in social documentary photography. While some photographers would likely have been content to simply frame the image as a compelling portrait of this child of farm laborers, Shahn pulls his camera back to include the print on the wall, creating a poetic image of a young person living in hard scrabble conditions, being watched over by the Madonna and Child.

This vintage exhibition print originally came from the personal collection of fellow FSA photographer Marion Post Wolcott.