Child's Coat

Art Historical Context

This watercolor and graphite rendering of a child's coat, created by Margaret Concha around 1937, belongs to the Index of American Design at the National Gallery of Art. The Index formed part of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project during the Great Depression, employing artists to produce precise visual records of American decorative arts, folk crafts, and everyday objects from earlier centuries. Concha's work exemplifies the project's documentary approach, using watercolor and graphite on paperboard to capture fine details of fabric, construction, and ornamentation with near-photographic accuracy. These illustrations served both as employment for skilled artists and as a lasting archive of items that might otherwise have been lost to time, documenting the ingenuity of American makers across regions and periods. Such renderings hold lasting cultural value by preserving glimpses of historical clothing and material culture, including children's garments that reveal aspects of family life, craftsmanship, and design traditions. The Index of American Design remains an essential resource, inviting viewers to appreciate the artistry in ordinary objects and the nation's rich heritage of handmade work.

About the Artist

Margaret Concha · 1897–1994

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 ...