Alphabet
1954
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
1954
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Ben Shahn’s *Alphabet* is a print based on the Hebrew alphabet. The letters balance black and white, a trick he learned early as a lithography apprentice. His strict training taught him to value space around shapes as much as the shapes themselves. The design also ties to a 13th-century text called *The Alphabet of Creation*. Shahn reused this idea for a book cover years later. Check out more prints by Ben Shahn.
