On your wall
The WPA & the Golden Age · Reading & the Stage
Haiti, a drama of the black Napoleon, by William Du Bois, Lafayette Theatre
Vera Bock · Federal Theatre Project, Work Projects Administration, 1938
What it is
A 1938 silkscreen color poster designed by Vera Bock for the Federal Theatre Project's production of William Du Bois's play "Haiti" at the Lafayette Theatre. It reduces the drama to a single commanding portrait: a stylized black Napoleon.
Why it matters
The play staged the Haitian Revolution for a Depression-era audience, and this sheet was printed in the silkscreen workshops of the WPA's Federal Art Project, which put unemployed artists to work advertising the government's own theater. Vera Bock, among the most assured designers the WPA program produced, made the poster carry the argument the title makes plainly — that a Black general could be cast in Napoleon's role, and command the stage.
What to notice
Look at how the face is built from flat, hard-edged planes of color with no gradients or shading — the silkscreen does the authority, one clean pass of pigment at a time.
Power printed flat, and none the weaker for it.
Provenance
- School
- WPA — Federal Art Project (United States)
- Designer
- Vera Bock
- Format
- Theater poster
- Poster published
- Federal Theatre Project, Work Projects Administration, 1938
- Source
- Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division · LCCN96515735 (cph.3g13592)
Rights: CLEAR. Public domain — U.S. government program work (WPA Federal Art Project), any year. Gated by the poster’s own publication year. Cleared by registry on 2026-07-18.
Format
The full-resolution, color-managed file — restored honestly, yours to print and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan supports sizes up to 24x36" cleanly.
Size
$29.00
