Dress

Art Historical Context

This watercolor rendering of a dress, created by Bessie Forman around 1938, belongs to the Index of American Design at the National Gallery of Art. Measuring about 18 by 13 inches, it was executed in watercolor, graphite, and heightening on paperboard—a combination that allowed artists to capture both precise linear details and the luminous, textured qualities of fabric. Forman was one of many skilled artists contributing to this ambitious national project. The Index of American Design, part of the New Deal’s Federal Art Project, employed hundreds of artists between 1935 and 1942 to document America’s decorative arts and crafts. These highly accurate illustrations recorded historical objects—furniture, textiles, ceramics, and costumes—that might otherwise have been lost or forgotten. Renderings like this one preserve the cut, pattern, and construction of period clothing, offering a vivid visual archive of American material culture from the colonial era through the nineteenth century. Today the work invites viewers to appreciate both the original dress’s craftsmanship and the artist’s meticulous technique. Watercolor conveyed the fabric’s color and drape, graphite defined seams and stitching, and white heightening suggested highlights and sheen. In doing so, Forman’s drawing not only records a piece of fashion history but also stands as a testament to the era’s belief in art’s power to safeguard cultural heritage.

About the Artist

Bessie Forman · 1855–present

Bessie Forman is an artist whose works survive in museum collections in sufficient quantity to establish her as a genuine practitioner with a real body of output, even as the biographical details that would fully situate her within art history — her dates, her training, her national context — have not been preserved in the sources most accessible to researchers today. Her first name, Bessie, is ch...