December 6, 2024

We would like to - once again - thank Michael Berg for his generous drawing of a Ben Shahn print and a drawing (2024.4.7), and a photograph of the artist Bernarda Bryson Shahn (2024.4.6). Mourners is a preparatory drawing for "Death of a Miner" (1949), currently held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  

"Death of a Miner" encapsulates well Shahn's vision for a modern art anchored in the politics of labor and, later, in the civil rights movement. It depicts a deadly 1947 mine disaster near Centralia (Illinois), where 111 people died after a coal mine exploded. At the time of the explosion, 142 men were in the mine, 65 were killed by burns and 46 by afterdamp. The United Mine Workers Union had long warned that the accumulating coal dust was dangerous and could cause explosions, but they were ignored. Shahn shows a dying miner at the center of the composition, while a red abstract form - the toxic gases that killed most of the workers - floats eerily on the left. On the right, a group of people mourn the dead; the MAC's drawing is a preparatory drawing for this group.