Child's Boot

Art Historical Context

This watercolor and graphite drawing of a child's boot, created circa 1937 by Earl Butlin, belongs to the Index of American Design at the National Gallery of Art. The Index was a New Deal initiative of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project, in which artists produced precise renderings of American folk art, crafts, and decorative objects to form a lasting visual archive of the nation's material heritage. Butlin employed watercolor washes for color and modeling together with graphite for fine linear detail, a combination typical of the Index's documentary approach that valued accuracy over artistic interpretation. The modest sheet size of 35 by 24.5 cm allowed for careful, portable records of everyday items such as children's footwear, capturing their construction and character for study long after the original objects might vanish. Created amid the Great Depression, the project both employed skilled artists and celebrated American craftsmanship across centuries. These works continue to illuminate historical daily life and the value of government-supported efforts to preserve cultural memory.

About the Artist

Earl Butlin · 1855–present

Earl Butlin was an American artist active around 1935, best known for his contributions to the Index of American Design, a New Deal-era Federal Art Project initiative that employed hundreds of artists to create a comprehensive pictorial survey of American crafts, folk art, and decorative objects from the colonial period through 1900. His early life is not well documented, with no records of formal...