In 1957, American artist Ben Shahn (Kaunas, 1898 — New York, 1969), born to Jewish Lithuanian parents, wrote On Nonconformity, one of six lectures he delivered at Harvard University. In the text he maintained that nonconformity is an indispensable precondition not just for significant artistic production but for all great social change. This thinking runs through a body of work that, spanning four decades, explores issues such as unemployment, discrimination, totalitarianism, militarism and threats to freedom of expression.