Silver Funeral Spoon

Art Historical Context

This delicate rendering of a silver funeral spoon captures a poignant artifact of American material culture from the 1930s. Created by artist Jack Staloff around 1936 as part of the Index of American Design, the drawing belongs to a remarkable New Deal initiative that employed hundreds of artists to document historic decorative arts across the United States. Through precise graphite and colored pencil work on paper measuring roughly 11 by 9 inches, Staloff faithfully records an original spoon just 7⅝ inches long, preserving its form for future generations at a time when many such objects riske...

About the Artist

Jack Staloff

Jack Staloff was an American artist and designer active during the 1930s and 1940s, best known for his contributions to the Index of American Design, a New Deal-era Federal Art Project under the Works Progress Administration (WPA). This ambitious initiative commissioned artists across the United States to create precise watercolor and graphite renderings of everyday American crafts, tools, and dec...