Metal Grits Grinder

Art Historical Context

Behold the *Metal Grits Grinder* by Ray Price, a watercolor, graphite, and colored pencil on paper from around 1939. Measuring 36.9 x 33.8 cm, this precise depiction captures an everyday American kitchen tool—a sturdy metal device for grinding grits, evoking the heart of Southern homelife and self-sufficient cooking traditions during the Great Depression era. Created as part of the Index of American Design, a groundbreaking WPA Federal Art Project (19351942), Price's work contributes to a vast visual archive documenting America's folk art, crafts, and industrial designs. Sponsored by the U.S. government to employ artists and celebrate national heritage, the Index preserved over 15,000 renderings of objects that embodied cultural identity, from quilts to machinery like this grits grinder. Price's masterful use of layered watercolor for metallic sheen, graphite for fine details, and colored pencil for subtle hues exemplifies the Index's photorealistic style, blending artistry with documentation. Housed in the National Gallery of Art's CG-W department, it invites us to appreciate how ordinary tools reflected ingenuity and resilience in 20th-century America.

About the Artist

Ray Price · 1855–present

Ray Price was an American artist active around 1935, renowned for his meticulous watercolor renderings of everyday American objects and crafts. His oeuvre, comprising 88 works held in the National Gallery of Art collection, captures the functional beauty of vernacular items from the late 1930s through the late 1940s. Little is known about Price's early life or formal training, as biographical deta...