Paddle wheel cover from the
steamship Island Home, watercolor with white heightening over
graphite by Alfred Smith. National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C. 'Index of American Design.'
Folk Art, Modernism and 'The Index of American
Design'
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Index of American Design helped
hundreds of artists through the Great Depression and produced a
pictorial survey of Americana that may never be surpassed. The
National Gallery of Art is currently celebrating the 60th
anniversary of its 1943 acquisition of the Index with the
exhibition, ": Folk Art, Modernism and the Index of American
Design." On view in the West Building through March 2, the
exhibition includes 80 of the finest watercolor renderings of
American folk, popular and decorative art in the Index,
along with a selection of nearly 40 of the original objects they
represent -- reunited for the first time since the 1930s. The
objects range from quilts, weathervanes and hand carved toys to
carousel animals, tavern signs and cigar-store figures.
"The Index renderings document our common cultural
identity and have an uncanny power to make us see the
all-too-familiar articles of ordinary life with unaccustomed
clarity," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of
Art. "This is the first major exhibition on the Index
since 1984 and the first to be accompanied by a comprehensive,
scholarly exhibition catalog. We are indebted to the Henry Luce
Foundation for providing the generous support that allowed us to
realize this exhibition and its catalog."
"The original idea for the Index of American Design was
formulated by two women," states Virginia Tuttle in her essay,
"Picturing a 'Useable Past,'" Ruth Reeves and Romana Javitz.
Reeves, an innovative textile designer, member of the American
Union of Decorative Artists and Craftsmen and socialite in the
New York art circles, teamed up with Javitz, who controlled the
New York Public Library's Picture Collection and was frustrated
with the poorly represented American materials in the files.
"In spring 1935 the inauguration of the Federal Art Project was a
prime topic of conversation among the New York art circles,"
writes Tuttle, " and in 1935 Javitz wrote a formal proposal
describing the Index project." Reeves brought the plan to
Frances Pollack, head of educational programs for New York's
Temporary Emergency Relief Fund and a "limited version of what
would become a national Index of American Design thus
began in October 1935 under Pollack's direction as a local New
York City project."
A vast pictorial archive of American folk, popular and decorative
art from the time of European settlement to around 1900, the
Index was subsequently produced by a government-supported,
New Deal art project between 1935 and 1942. The more than 18,000
watercolor renderings in the Index portray such archetypal
Americana as weathervanes, quilts, figureheads, toys and
cigar-store Indians -- the humble arts and crafts of Americans'
ancestral "common man."
"Captain Jinks," Albert Rider, 1935/1942. Watercolor over
graphite from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
'Index of American Design.'
Although the Index of American Design documents the
nation's material past, it was not intended to be an antiquarian
project. Its creators were dedicated modernists who found
evidence of an American cultural identity in the simple, abstract
design of Index artifacts. During the Great Depression,
the project offered employment to impoverished artists who
recorded images of fragile works in imminent danger of loss.
Moreover, it was the goal of the Index founders to
familiarize Americans with what was then a little-known part of
their cultural heritage. They believed that widespread
recognition of a national style of design in these objects would
lead to the development of a distinctly American modernism. The
new art they aspired to promote would be highly democratic,
breaking down the barriers between the fine and the industrial
arts to create inexpensive, manufactured items serving as modern
art for the everyday life of all Americans.
The Index renderings are not only accurate documents but
compelling works of art in their own right. To achieve their
intense realism the artists minutely contemplated the objects'
tactile qualities, luminosity and most subtle gradations of
color, texture and form, and then employed all their
extraordinary technical skills to represent this data in the
challenging medium of watercolor.
The New Deal art projects, including the Index of American
Design, came to an end when the United States entered World
War II and unemployment was no longer the country's preeminent
problem. Many of the original objects have been lost or damaged
since they were depicted in the Index. Even more
important, the Index succeeded in familiarizing Americans
with their country's folk art and with the idea -- still current
today -- that America's true cultural identity might be
discovered in these artifacts.
The Exhibition
This exhibition reunites -- for the first time since the 1930s --
80 of the Index renderings with nearly 40 of the original
artifacts they represent. In the first introductory room, the
magnificent Angel Gabriel Weathervane, now in a private
collection, appears alongside the rendering that made this object
a true icon of the Index of American Design. Also on
display is a "demonstration drawing" indicating the step-by-step
process the artist used to create this rendering. Period
photographs show Index artists at work on two of the
watercolors displayed in this room. Additional renderings reflect
the wide scope of the project, from Southwestern Indian baskets
and African American ceramics to both German and Hispanic works
from Texas and New England Shaker textiles.
The second room is filled with watercolors of toys, carousel
animals, a sled, roller skates, a little girl's dress and a
comical Quaker whirligig. A real carousel rooster from a private
collection strides through the center of this space, accompanied
by a toy horse, a partial set of nine pins, a carved poodle and
several other items that will delight children, all paired with
their original Index renderings.
Ruth Reeves, one of two women who formulated the idea for the
'Index of American Design,' shown here in a 1938 photograph
with several of the original watercolors. Courtesy National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Gallery Archives.
The third and largest space displays renderings and objects meant
for the domestic realm. Fabulous quilts and crewel embroideries
from the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and
the Wadsworth Atheneum are installed beside their renderings and
are joined by furniture, Pennsylvania German ceramics, early
stoneware, a sampler and other artifacts borrowed from private
collections and the Bucks County Historical Society, the
Philadelphia Museum of Art and the New-York Historical Society.
Shop, tavern and inn signs, figureheads, decoys and a steamship's
paddle wheel cover occupy the next room, both in the form of
rendered images and actual objects. A Civil War drum, lent by the
Chicago Historical Society, stands beside its painted portrait,
and a unique and highly inventive carved gate with agricultural
tools, now the property of the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury,
Conn., is reintroduced to its 1940 Index rendering. A
secular Madonna of Liberty, carved and painted by an Italian
immigrant and borrowed for the show from the Shelburne Museum in
Vermont, compares with its watercolor image.
A concluding space pairs three outstanding late Nineteenth
Century cigar-store figures with their 1930s Index
renderings. The pompous Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, from
a private collection, is stationed beside a baseball player --
possibly a portrait of Mike "King" Kelly -- and Dapper Dan, both
promised gifts to the American Folk Art Museum in New York.
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C. The exhibition and catalog were made possible by
the Henry Luce Foundation.
"We are delighted to help bring this exhibition to the National
Gallery of Art," said Ellen Holtzman, program director for the
arts at the Luce Foundation. "Our sponsorship of the exhibition
and its accompanying catalog underscores the foundation's
commitment to innovation and scholarship in the field of American
fine and decorative arts."
Curator and Catalog
The curator is Virginia Tuttle Clayton, associate curator of old
master prints for the National Gallery. A fully illustrated and
informative catalog, : Folk Art, Modernism and the Index of
American Design, accompanies the exhibition and is available
in either hardcover or softbound. In three essays, Clayton,
Elizabeth Stillinger and Erica Doss explore and examine the
issues of folk art, national identity and modernism, and explain
the history and lofty ambitions of this intriguing New Deal
project. They examine the day-to-day functioning of the
Index project, its relationship to American art between
the two world wars, and the role it played in forming present
notions of what is American in American art. It is the perfect
sister publication to the wonderful original volumes of the
Index of American Design.. The catalog is published by the
National Gallery of Art and is available for $25 (softcover) and
$45 (hardcover) in the Gallery Shops, from the website
(www.nga.gov) and by phone at 202-842-6002 or 800-697-9350.
The National Gallery of Art is located on the National Mall
between Third and Ninth Streets at Constitution Avenue, NW,
Washington, D.C.
