Ice Skate
c. 1937
Medium
watercolor and graphite on paperboard
Dimensions
overall: 22.9 x 30.5 cm (9 x 12 in.)
Classification
Index of American Design
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Index of American Design
Accession Number
1943.8.1872
Art Historical Context
**Ice Skate**, a captivating watercolor and graphite rendering by Samuel O. Klein around 1937, belongs to the Index of American Design—a monumental WPA Federal Art Project from the Great Depression era. This initiative employed artists to meticulously document everyday American objects, folk art, and crafts, preserving nation's cultural heritage through precise, colorful illustrations. Klein's work captures the graceful form of a traditional ice skate, highlighting its functional elegance amid the era's economic hardships, when such simple pleasures symbolized resilience and leisure. Rendered...
About the Artist
Samuel O. Klein
Samuel O. Klein is an artist whose biographical details remain largely unrecorded in standard art-historical references, his dates and nationality currently undocumented. Nevertheless, the presence of his work across museum collections attests to a productive career and a level of recognition that earned him a place in the institutional record, however incomplete the accompanying documentation may...