According to Painter Ben Shahn, there are only two good excuses for art. "You paint something because you like it a lot," he says, "or else because you hate it." Shahn, 49, paints mostly what he hates.
His awkward, muscle-bound but often effective pictures were honored last week with a retrospective show at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art. The 55 temperas and gouaches on exhibition were sharply drawn, flatly painted reminders of the Sacco-Vanzetti and Tom Mooney cases, the slum children who scrabble for happiness in high-walled playgrounds, the gnarled and stunted poor,...
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