On Friday, Oct. 5, the Farnsworth Art Museum in downtown Rockland will open a new exhibition entitled “Maine and the Index of American Design.” This exhibition of watercolors, wood carvings and photography will be on view in the museum’s Crosman Gallery through March 24, 2019.

During the Great Depression the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, later known as the Works Progress Administration, helped provide employment in the arts between 1935 and 1942. One of the most ambitious of the Federal Art Projects was the Index of American Design, a project that engaged artists to contribute to a picture archive of American popular arts.

In Maine and elsewhere, artists illustrated objects comprising 200 years of the nation’s decorative arts history. Their work comprises a collection of more than 18,000 illustrations now housed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The Farnsworth exhibition and catalogue feature 24 Maine project illustrations from the Index of American Design collection on loan from the National Gallery, along with some of the original artifacts they depict, as well as vintage photographs of this subject matter from 1930’s Maine. The exhibition catalogue written by Farnsworth Curator Jane Bianco will be available in the Museum Store.

The exhibition opening will be celebrated during the museum’s First Friday at the Farnsworth sponsored by First National Bank, on Friday, October 5, from 5 to 8 pm. The opening is free to the public. Midcoast Community Partners for this exhibition include Hampton Inn & Suites and Bagala Window Works.

In conjunction with this exhibition there will be a lecture Saturday, Oct. 6, “The Art of Designing the Index of American Design - A Work in Progress.” The talk, by Mary Lee Corlett, curatorial assistant at the National Gallery of Art, will be at 2 p.m. in the Museum auditorium.

On Saturday, Nov. 10, Farnsworth Curator Jane Bianco will give a lecture about the exhibition in the Museum auditorium at 2 p.m.

For more information, or to register for these events visit www.farnsworthmuseum.org