From the start of the 1950s onwards the then young architects Alison (1928-1993) and Peter Smithson (1923-2003) played a crucial avantgarde role in British architecture due to the high experimental and ethical content of their designs and to their relation-ship with Team 10. With the building of Hunstanton Secondary Modern School (1950-1954) and their competition projects for Coventry Cathedral (1950-1951), the Golden Lane housing estate (1952) and the University of Sheffield (1953) they laid the foundations for a reflection on the more important issues in modern architectural culture. Their search for a language appropriate to the contemporary situation, their proposals for a new urban morphology, their ideas about the development of lifestyle in relation to interior space, and the connections architecture establishes with the environmental context are some of the themes explored during the course of their work.

There are special places in the world that possess a unique ambience -- cities that glow with timeless grandeur, landscapes whose features change with the seasons yet remain eternally beautiful. Dramatic full color photos and a perceptive text portray the essence of those unforgettable, exquisite places.

Beginning in the thirties, he created bold and powerful paintings of often controversial subjects, and in particular his portraits of Sacco and Vanzetti caused a storm whenever they were exhibited. After working as an assistant to Diego Rivera on the ill-fated Rockefeller Center mural, he began creating his own arresting murals--in Washington, New York, and New Jersey--which are among the finest such works ever painted in this country. He also excelled as a photographer as one of the distinguished group known as the FSA photographers, which included Dorothea Lange and his close friend Walker Evans. His life crossed the paths of many others, too, including Albert Einstein, Alexander Calder, William Carlos Williams, Archibald MacLeish, and S. J. Perelman. During World War II, he produced some of the most striking and effective propaganda posters, before returning again to painting, always choosing subjects that touched a nerve and were just as often politically powerful. Shahn also entered the world of advertising, but completely on his own terms, and was respected for it. His life was always involved directly with his times, and he was a member of the intellectual community throughout his career, as well as a courageous political activist. His unique, unforgettable work won him shows in museums all over America, including the Museum of Modern Art. Ben Shahn is the first complete life of the artist, and it is illustrated throughout with his photographs, pictures, and paintings.