Index of american design

A New Deal art program that hired numerous artists to produce more than 18,000 watercolor renderings of American decorative arts objects from the colonial period through the nineteenth century, including costumes, dolls, folk arts of the Spanish Southwest, furniture, metalwork, Pennsylvania German folk art, pottery, Shaker crafts, textiles, toys, and woodcarving. The Index of American Design was one of the projects between 1935 and 1942 of the Section of Painting and Sculpture (SPS), later known as the Section of Fine Arts (SFA) in the Treasury Department of the U.S. government. Much or all of the Index is now in the collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Tours of the Index of American Design are available as slide programs from the National Gallery's Department of Education Resources: Free Loan Programs.