Bonnet
1935/1942
Medium
watercolor and graphite on paper
Dimensions
overall: 29.7 x 23 cm (11 11/16 x 9 1/16 in.)
Classification
Index of American Design
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Index of American Design
Accession Number
1943.8.3116
Art Historical Context
**Bonnet**, a delicate watercolor and graphite rendering by Margaret Concha, captures the charm of traditional American folk headwear from the era of the Index of American (IAD). Created between 1935 and 1942, this 29.7 x 23 cm work belongs to a groundbreaking WPA Federal Art Project initiative during the Great Depression. The IAD employed over 200 artists to document everyday American crafts, preserving cultural heritage through precise, colorful studies of objects like quilts, furniture, and apparel that might otherwise be lost to time. Concha's piece exemplifies the IAD's signature style: ...
About the Artist
Margaret Concha
Margaret Concha is an artist whose life and career remain incompletely documented in the major scholarly literature on art history. No confirmed birth or death dates have been established, and details of her training, nationality, and primary working period are not reliably recorded in available sources. The works attributed to her suggest engagement with the visual traditions of her era, though ...