About this artwork
Trained at the Art Students League under Thomas Hart Benton, Joseph LeBoit was a productive member of the silkscreen unit of the New York Graphic Arts Division of the Federal Art Project. As an active member of Artists for Victory, he organized war-themed exhibitions to boost morale at home. This series of five prints features horrific images of Europe during World War II, including a family huddled in the bombed-out remains of a house, a scene of a murdered mother and child, and a Nazi soldier stealing a loaf of bread, a chicken, and two piglets from a forlorn mother and children, leaving them alive but destitute. In all cases, the Nazis—the Herrenvolk, or “Master Race”—are depicted ironically: a nation of louts, looters, and murderers.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- Joseph LeBoit
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Title
- Herrenvolk
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1942–1943
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Medium
- Woodcut on cream wove paper
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Dimensions
- Image: 46.1 × 35.1 cm (18 3/16 × 13 7/8 in.); Sheet, sight: 47.9 × 37 cm (18 7/8 × 14 5/8 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Mollie LeBoit
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Reference Number
- 2007.318