Town Crier's Bell

Art Historical Context

Edith Towner's *Town Crier's Bell (c. 1937) is a meticulous rendering of a historic artifact central to early American communication. Before newspapers and modern media, town criers used bells like this to summon villagers for public announcements, embodying colonial traditions of community and authority. Created in watercolor, graphite, and pen ink on paper (30.9 x 22.2 cm), Towner's work captures the bell's intricate details—from its ornate handle to its weathered patina—with precision and vibrancy. This piece belongs to the Index of American Design, a landmark Federal Art Project under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) from 1935 to 1942. During the Great Depression, artists like Towner documented everyday American folk art and crafts through detailed plates, preserving cultural heritage amid economic hardship. The Index produced over 15,000 works, highlighting regional designs and everyday objects as vital to national identity. Towner's mixed-media technique blends the fluidity of watercolor for texture and depth with the sharp lines of pen and ink and graphite for accuracy, making this not just an illustration but a scholarly record. Housed in the National Gallery of Art, it invites visitors to appreciate how simple tools shaped democratic discourse in America's past.

About the Artist

Edith Towner · 1855–present

Edith Towner was an American artist active around 1940, whose name is closely associated with the Index of American Design, the federally funded visual survey of American decorative arts and material culture produced under the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Working in watercolor, colored pencil, graphite, and pen and ink on paper, Towner brought skilled draftsmanship and an e...