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THE COMMISSION OF FINE ARTS

July 1, 1941

Dear Mr. Bruce:

The photographs of revised designs by Ben Shahn for mural paintings in the Social Security Building, which were submitted by your office on June 17th, were brought to the particular attention of Mr. Henry Varnum Poor, painter member of the Commission. Mr. Poor has reported as follows:

"I think the only way in which I can be of any constructive help in relation to matters which are carried over from former meetings of the Commission is just to give my opinion starting fresh - - which I will attempt to do.

"I think these Shahn murals are very powerful, very poignant, and in their idion, both as regards subject matter and artistic method, extremely present day and of the moment. I think it is rare and lucky that things so essentially present day should go into a building devoted to something so essentially of today as Social Security. They are at the opposite pole from the heroic "cape slinging" murals and for that we can be thankful.

"I would not be expressing myself honestly if I did not at the same time confess that they are also in many ways distressingly drab and built up out of strangely fotographic and pieced-together details not always organically related. But this very quality does undoubtedly contribute in large part to their force and their poignancy. It is not unusual that a man's weakness is also his strength and that is certainly true here. This being so, I feel it's rather pointless to find much fault with 'scale' and other such details.

"I know from seeing Mr. Shahn's murals in the Bronx post office that he does put beautiful painting into them, and that he has a fine sense of his surface so that even if the figures seem overly large, they will not destroy the wall. Other than that, in these corridors there is no architecture, so nothing to worry about on that score. 

"All these judgments are made from studying the fotographs of the sketches and from my knowledge of Mr. Shahn's other mural work.

"About the cartoons, I must say that they are purely linear and dead enlargements of the sketches, and certainly have no development over the sketches. I should think that for his own satisfaction, and to get a more positive and active sense of their relation to their spaces, Mr. Shahn would want to carry them further, while they are still flexible and open to change.

"However, if he feels sure enough of his sketches to want to go ahead with the painting, I would certainly say let him go, for I don't think anything is gained by interfering with a man's own way of working, and moreover, the technique of tempers on a wall adapts itself to much changing and working over.