Red Wooden Cross used as Headstone

Art Historical Context

This watercolor, colored pencil, and graphite rendering by Majel G. Claflin, created around 1937, captures a humble red wooden cross that once served as a simple headstone. The original object stood just two feet high, embodying the vernacular folk traditions of American communities where ordinary wood and paint became personal memorials. Produced for the Index of American Design—a Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression—this work belongs to a vast visual archive of the nation’s decorative arts and crafts. Artists like Claflin were employed to docu...

About the Artist

Majel G. Claflin

Majel G. Claflin (1893–1941) was an American artist best known for her meticulous documentation of Spanish Colonial folk art from northern New Mexico. Active in Taos, New Mexico, during the late 1930s, she produced watercolor renderings as part of the Index of American Design, a Federal Art Project under the Works Progress Administration that aimed to catalog regional American crafts and tradition...