There was nothing inherently alluring about the topic in artist Ben Shahn’s hands when, in 1940,
he won a commission he called the “most important job that I could want.” It was the most Washington of subjects, a muse dressed in khakis and a button-up …
Shahn was painting Social Security.
At the time, the New Deal program was new, and Shahn, along with Philip Guston, Seymour Fogel and others, had been selected from 375 entries bythe government’s prestigious Section of Fine Arts to paint the freshly minted Social Security Administration building in Washington, across Independence Avenue from the National Mall...
The federally funded project would fill the Social Security building with more than 1,800 square feet of art, later inspiring a nickname among experts and enthusiasts: the “Sistine Chapel of the New Deal.” Read more at WashingtonPost.com