Coal Stove c. 1940

Frank Gray made this watercolor painting of a coal stove, sometime in the first half of the 20th century. It’s an interesting choice of subject for an artwork, and helps us understand how everyday objects can carry cultural meaning. The painting has a documentary quality, reminiscent of the Index of American Design, a New Deal project that employed artists to record American material culture. This image might have been created for this project. The Index of American Design saw value in these common objects, and believed their forms captured something important about American identity and ingenuity. The stove represents a moment in history when coal was a common energy source for heating and cooking. It evokes a sense of domestic life and labor of the era. We can better understand the painting by looking into sources from the time. It can show us how the coal stove was marketed and used, and what it meant to families who depended on it. This helps us to understand its wider social and cultural context.