Herrenvolk

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.