Chapter One
The
Early Years:
Kovno and Vilkomir
In 1906, shortly after Ben Shahn arrived in the UnitedStates from Lithuania, he became aware of what he later called"the whole business of the Mayflower and ancestry." He was eightyears old and had been taught that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, thegreat biblical figures, were his ancestors, and they seemed unquestionablymore directly related to him than did Columbus and thePilgrims. It was puzzling. He recognized that he had parents andtwo sets of grandparents and many aunts and uncles, but he knewnothing of the kind of ancestry that appeared valued in his newcountry. In an attempt to establish this lineage, he nagged hisfather incessantly. He knew that his father was a woodcarver, aswere his father's father and his father's grandfather, but he wantedto know more. Finally, exasperated, the young boy's fatheranswered by drawing a picture of a man on a gibbet. When Benwanted to know who that was, his father angrily answered that theman was an ancestor, a horse thief, adding, "If I ever catch youasking about ancestors...! Only what you do counts, not whatyour ancestors did."
In spite of these words, there is no doubt that many of Ben'scharacteristics can be traced to his ancestors. His father, Hessel,born in 1871, was a skilled craftsman who loved to work with hishands, as would his son. He taught himself to draw at an early age,as would Ben, and he was a born storyteller, just as his son wouldbecome, in his art as well as in his conversation. Finally, Hesselwas an idealist, whose liberal political convictions must surelyhave influenced Ben.
Ben's mother, Gittel Lieberman, born in Lithuania in 1872, wasdescended from a family of peasants, but her father educated himselfand became an innkeeper, and later even worked as a schoolteacher.She, too, was a natural storyteller, whose fanciful talesdelighted her son. One of many children, she was apprenticed as akind of indentured servant to a wealthy family of wholesale grocers.Because she was a girl, she wasn't taught to read or writeLithuanian--she was taught these skills by her husband, aftertheir marriage--though she learned to work as a bookkeeper, makingout invoices in a language she couldn't understand. Gittel wasstrong-willed and keenly intelligent, as was her son. She was oftendescribed as quarrelsome and angry, as Ben would become.
"Most facts are lies; all stories are true," Ben told his friendEdwin Rosskam. And Ben told many stories. If a large number ofthese were invented, they are still worth recounting; they reveal asmuch about the artist as would the truth. He was the sum of hisstories.
Certainly his memories of his earliest years in Kovno, where hewas born on September 12, 1898, were, inevitably, confused--and,as he admitted, most likely inaccurate, since he spent onlyfour years of his life there. These early memories include brutalincidents of religious discrimination and political terror. At thetime of Ben's birth, Kovno, where more than 25,000 Jews lived(they made up approximately 30 percent of the town's population)was a center of Jewish cultural activity. These Jews lived in theirown section, separated from the Gentiles. Crossing the non-Jewishsector was so dangerous that they walked through it hurriedly,never strolling in a leisurely fashion. They were even harassed athome and at work. Many Russian soldiers were stationed inKovno, and when these recruits, most of them far from home,drank too much, they would smash the windows of the Jewish-ownedhomes and shops. Ben remembered a rock coming throughthe window of the Shahn home at least once. His family knew,however, that it would be futile to protest since any complaint tothe authorities would be considered anti-czarist and result in harshpunishment.
Not all of Ben's memories were unhappy ones, however. Onoccasion he enjoyed playing with friendly soldiers on the paradeground where military drills and maneuvers were held. In Kovno,he ate ice cream for the first and only time before moving to America.An Armenian or a Turk carried on his head a huge woodenbucket filled with a container of the sweet frozen dessert, packedin ice. There was an uncle who played him to sleep with his trumpeteach night when he stayed with Ben's family while on furloughfrom the army. And Ben remembered with great affection hisfather, whose stories entertained him, and who carried him on hisshoulders to large gatherings, most likely socialist meetings.
Ben was too young to remember the birth of his brother Philipin 1900, but he did recall the birth of his sister Hattie in June1902, when he was not yet four years old. She was born in a smallroom, separated from a larger one by a curtain with a peacockdesign; an old man--a cousin or a neighbor--sat on a nearby stool,cutting his toenails so close to the flesh that each toe bled.
That year of 1902 was a traumatic one for the young child. Notlong after the birth of his sister, his father, politically active as anenemy of the czarist government, was arrested by the authorities.According to Gittel, her husband had been framed--revolutionaryleaflets, she maintained, had been planted on him. However, inspite of her pleas, Hessel was exiled to Siberia, leaving his wifealone to bring up their three small children, and his eldest sonheartbroken at the loss of a father.
Shortly after Hessel's departure, Gittel decided to move back toVilkomir, forty miles away, where she and her husband had beenborn. A river divided the town, and the two parts were connectedby a bridge. Most of Vilkomir's more than 7,000 Jews (half the populationof the town) lived "across the river." Gittel's friends, as wellas her parents and Hessel's, still lived in Vilkomir, and she felt certainthat life would be far easier for a single mother there than inKovno.
In Vilkomir, Ben formed one of the deepest attachments of hislife, with his paternal grandfather. He also first learned to expresshimself through drawing, and began to question the fundamentaldoctrines of his religion.
Ben's paternal grandfather, Wolf-Leyb ("Wolf-Lion"), was a hugeman, known throughout the village for his enormous strength andfor his kindness and warmth. He became, for his young grandson,not only a surrogate father but also a genuine hero. He was so successfulas a carpenter, making baroque furniture for a pope of theOrthodox church, that he eventually had half a dozen men workingfor him and therefore could spend all the time he wantedentertaining Ben. He did this with great love and enthusiasm. Heconstantly made things for the boy, carving out a little cart with agoat and any number of other toys, as well as teaching Ben how tocarve objects himself--most memorably, a multiple-link chain, outof a single piece of wood. Wolf-Lion was always kind to Ben, evenwhile disciplining him, which he did with tenderness.
Ben's maternal grandmother, a tiny woman, was also unfailinglysweet to him. Her husband, however, Ben's first teacher, was a redheadedtyrant, who was luckily soon replaced by a somewhat moreunderstanding instructor. And despite the tyrant's brief reign, forthe most part Ben, the oldest grandchild, was spoiled, so much sothat his mother summoned help from her own brother, a rigid disciplinarian.According to Ben, he resembled a bearded Protestantminister with his black coat and white collar, and he had no influenceon him whatsoever.
One of Ben's childhood memories was of a powerful fire thatdestroyed most of Vilkomir in 1902. Terrified, he walked throughthe charred town with his grandfather, whose five or six houses,since they were on the outskirts, were among the few not damaged.It was frightening: the fire bursting out everywhere, hundredsof people standing in the shallow river, carrying chests ofdrawers and bedding, in an effort to save themselves and theirbelongings. Lines of men formed a bucket brigade from the river,and in the background the blinding light of flames illuminated theburning town. This devastating fire left an indelible impression onhim. Raging flames became a symbol of destructive power in manyof his paintings and drawings.
Most important, in Vilkomir Ben learned to draw. Drawing camenaturally to him; and he was always encouraged to draw whateverhe could not explain in words. Because very little paper was available,he made most of these drawings on the flyleaves and insidecovers of books. In Love and Joy About Letters, published in 1963,Ben described his first drawing, a portrait of his uncle Lieber, amember of the Russian cavalry, who, Ben was told, rode a horseand was very far away. Though he had never seen or met him, theboy was certain that his uncle was famous, because his familyspoke of him so often and with so much respect. He wrote of thisportrait:
"Since the only military installation that I had ever known wasthe striped sentinel box at the caserne at the end of our street, Idrew my uncle sitting on his horse in front of that. The stripeswere nice, but the horse troubled me because it looked like acow--at least it looked more like a cow than a horse." To makesure that no one mistook the horse for a cow, he placed a caption,"Uncle Lieber Sitting on His Horse," beneath the drawing.
Ben's early formal education consisted almost exclusively ofBible and Talmudic studies. A precocious child, he was placed in aclass with older students. They worked diligently for nine hours aday, studying the Bible, putting letters together to make its words,and studying its prayers and psalms. Discipline was severe; studentswho arrived late were whipped. Ben learned one importantlesson at school: to despise injustice and fight it vigorously wheneverand wherever he found it. He was enraged, for instance, by histeacher's practice of punishing the entire class for something thatonly one student had done. He hadn't done it, he would insist, andhe wouldn't tell who had (if he knew). He categorically refused topay for something for which he was not responsible. "I hate injustice,"he told an interviewer in 1944. "I guess that's about the onlything that I really do hate. I've hated injustice ever since I read astory in school."
He repeated that story throughout his lifetime. It was a part ofhis Bible studies, and it concerned the building of Solomon's templeand the carrying of the Ark of the Covenant into that temple.According to the story, the Ark was to be brought in by two oxen; itrested precariously on a pole laced between them. The Lordwarned that the pole would inevitably totter, but demanded that noone touch it since it was God's Ark, and He would take care of it.This was a test of faith. Of course, the Ark did totter, and one mandid touch it, instinctively, in order to stop it from falling. Immediately,as he had been warned, the well-intentioned man was struckdead.
Young Ben, enraged, began to argue with his teacher. God wasunjust, he insisted, and he refused to return to school until thisinjustice was officially admitted. After a week or ten days, and endlessdiscussions between his teacher and his grandfather, Benreturned to school. "I must have compromised," he told an interviewermany years later, "probably my first compromise."
At this early age, Ben began to challenge the fundamentalbeliefs of Judaism. In the course of a Saturday class, reserved forquestions, he boldly asked the rabbi, "Who made God?"--and theresponse was a slap in the face. He also tested the laws of his religion.According to those laws, it was forbidden to touch the candlesticksor have anything to do with fire on the Sabbath. At a largeSabbath dinner, however, Ben did touch the lighted candles, justas they were about to fall. Certain that something awful wouldhappen to him because of his defiant act, he was puzzled when hewas not punished. He was not chastised, either, when, on anotheroccasion, he defied the laws of his religion by keeping a coin in hispocket throughout the Sabbath. He was, he noted later in his life,being brought up with values that were unacceptable to him.
Continues...
Excerpted from Ben Shahnby Howard Greenfeld Copyright © 1998 by Howard Greenfeld. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
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