Shadow and Substance

Vogel produced this print for the Federal Art Project, a New Deal (1935–43) program created during the Great Depression to employ artists and expand access to art across the United States. Shadow and Substance depicts the modern artist as a silhouetted figure, whose visual perception transforms a ship’s wheel—with barbed wire hanging from its base—into a series of abstracted forms. The nautical metaphor evokes contemporary anxieties that those at the "helm" of society were steering the world toward another war. In doing so, Vogel participated in contemporary debates over whether modernist styles could effectively communicate issues affecting the working class, who would likely face the heaviest toll in such a conflict.