Sewing Table
c. 1936
Medium
watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, pen and ink, and graphite on paper
Dimensions
overall: 29.2 x 22.7 cm (11 1/2 x 8 15/16 in.) Original IAD Object: 29 1/2" x 20 1/2"x 16"
Classification
Index of American Design
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Index of American Design
Accession Number
1943.8.5731
Art Historical Context
Behold the delicate rendering *Sewing Table* by Bessie Forman, created around 1936 as part of the Index of American Design. This-media work on paper—measuring 29.2 x 22.7 cm—captures an exquisite American sewing table, approximately 29½ x 20½ x 16 inches in its original form. Forman's intricate depiction showcases the table's graceful curves, fine wood grains, and functional elegance, evoking the domestic craftsmanship of early American life. Produced under the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression, the Index of American Design (1935–1942) ...
About the Artist
Bessie Forman
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...