A man in a green apron dominates the scene, his arms straining as he saws away the red, unruly branches of a tree whose sturdy trunk is wrapped in black and white. The image offers no gentle allegory: every muscle in his forearms, every sharp angle of the saw, presses the viewer to consider the urgency of his task. The red branches, almost serpentine, seem to resist his efforts, yet his determined stance and the freshly cut limbs at his feet suggest progress.

The palette is stark—greens, reds, and the pale flesh of the worker—focusing the eye on the contrast between cultivated growth and wild excess. The message, spelled out boldly above and below, is as direct as the man’s labor: work more, save more, and the welfare of the people will rise. Created around 1943, CH-NB Poster Collection SNL POL 371 by Otto Plattner belongs to a world where political posters were a crucial weapon in the battle for public opinion. In a Europe torn by war and uncertainty, such images were commissioned by parties and civic groups to rally citizens, here urging “working citizens” to the polls for the Bürger- und Gewerbepartei.

The poster’s visual language—heroic labor, disciplined pruning, the promise of collective welfare—echoes the rhetoric of its time, when the fate of nations seemed to hang on the diligence and thrift of ordinary people. Though the details of this specific work’s journey remain obscure, its presence in a Swiss collection today speaks to the enduring power of images that once sought to shape the very course of history. Look again at the man’s face, and consider how the hopes and anxieties of an era are written into his furrowed brow.