Brass Key (1940)

D.J. Grant is an American artist who was active around 1935, and is known to have worked on artworks within The Index of American Design; a collection of approximately 18,000 watercolor renderings of American decorative art objects from the colonial period through the 19th century. Conceived as an effort to identify and preserve a national, ancestral aesthetic, the Index was created by about 400 artists between 1935 and 1942 as part of the Federal Art Project, a work-relief program during the Depression. Although not much is known about Daniel Grant specifically, his work has became a source of inspiration for artists who sought to sustain a distinctively American aesthetic, especially with regard to the generation of new industrial American design.