Sausage Grinder
c. 1937
Medium
watercolor, gouache, and pen and ink on paper
Dimensions
overall: 24.4 x 31 cm (9 5/8 x 12 3/16 in.)
Classification
Index of American Design
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Index of American Design
Accession Number
1943.8.11408
Art Historical Context
**Sausage Grinder** by Edward L. Loper created around 1937, captures a humble ingenious American kitchen tool through delicate watercolor, gouache, pen-and-ink on paper (24.4 x 31 cm Part of the *Index of American Design*a New Deal-era Federal Art Project (19351942)—this work how artists documented everyday objects to celebrate the nation's folk art and craftsmanship during the Great. Loper, a Philadelphia-based painter for his precise renderings, highlights the sausage grinder's sturdy metal construction and functional mechanics, evoking the practicality of 19th-century American home life. T...
About the Artist
Edward L. Loper
Edward Leroy Loper Sr. was born on April 7, 1916, in Wilmington, Delaware, to a poor family in the racially mixed Frogtown neighborhood, where he was raised primarily by his maternal grandmother. After graduating from Howard High School, the only secondary school available to African Americans in Delaware at the time, Loper received no formal artistic training initially but immersed himself in sel...