Coin Purse

Art Historical Context

**Coin Purse** by Gladys Cook, created around 1936, is a rendering from the Index of American Design (IAD), a New Deal-era project under the Works Progress Administration (WPA). in 1935, the IAD employed artists across the U.S. to meticulously document everyday American folk art, crafts, and design through precise watercolor drawings. Cook's work captures the humble elegance of a coin purse, the ingenuity of vernacular American craftsmanship during the Great Depression. Rendered in watercolor and graphite on paperboard (29.1 x 22.9 cm), the piece showcases the IAD's signature technique: graph...

About the Artist

Gladys Cook

Gladys Cook was an American illustrator and commercial artist whose work appeared widely in popular magazines and books during the mid-twentieth century. She is particularly remembered for her contributions to the world of children's illustration and her facility with a range of print media, producing images that were at once technically polished and warmly accessible to broad audiences. Cook's s...