Cigar Store Indian

Art Historical Context

**Cigar Store Indian**, a vibrant gouache on paperboard Eugene Croe, captures the essence of a classic American folk art form from around 1937. Created as part of the Index of American Design (IAD)—a New Deal-era Federal Art Project under the Works Progress Administration—this detailed rendering documents a towering wooden statue originally measuring 76 inches high and 16 inches. The IAD aimed to celebrate and preserve everyday American design, from quilts to shop signs, employing artists like Croe to produce precise, colorful watercolor studies during the Great Depression. Cigar store Indians were iconic 19th-century trade figures, carved from wood and placed outside tobacco shops to advertise wares, drawing on stereotypes of Native Americans as symbols of the "exotic" New World associated with tobacco. Croe's gouache technique, with its opaque pigments and luminous layering on paperboard, brings the statue's bold contours, feathered headdress, and expressive features to life in a compact 35.1 x 27.9 cm format, highlighting the craftsmanship of these vernacular sculptures. Housed in the National Gallery of Art, this work underscores the cultural crossroads of commerce, immigration, and folklore in early America, reminding us how public art once animated urban streets and preserved a slice of everyday history.

About the Artist

Eugene Croe · 1875–1953

Eugene Croe (c. 1875–1953) was an American artist whose career is primarily documented through his contributions to the Index of American Design, a Federal Art Project under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the 1930s and 1940s. This ambitious initiative commissioned artists to create precise illustrations of American folk art, decorative arts, and everyday objects, preserving a visua...