The 100 Greatest Brooklynites of All Time: 90 to 81
Is Ben Shahn the original Williamsburg artist, working a day job to support his art habit? Well, kind of. Born in Lithuania to “politically active” parents (not a good thing to be in Czarist Russia) little seven-year-old Ben and the whole family got the hell of the Baltics in 1908 and—eye roll—moved to Williamsburg, a solid 90 years before it was cool. Shahn went on to become one of the best crossover artists of the 20th century, moving effortless between fine art and editorial work, just like the thousands of graphic designers currently wandering around Williamsburg. Though renowned as one of America’s great social-realists (his series on Sacco and Vanzetti is wonderful), Shahn’s most viewed work was probably his Martin Luther King Jr. portrait on the cover of Time.