Shirt

Art Historical Context

This watercolor and graphite work, titled Shirt, was created by Virginia Berge around 1937 as part of the Index of American Design. The Index was a New Deal-era initiative of the Federal Art Project that employed artists to document America's decorative arts, folk crafts, and material culture through highly detailed illustrations. Berge's rendering captures an everyday garment with the precision typical of the project, using watercolor to convey texture and color while graphite provided fine linear details. These Index plates served as a visual archive of objects ranging from colonial furniture to 19th-century clothing, preserving designs that might otherwise have been lost. The choice of watercolor and graphite on paper allowed artists to produce accurate, reproducible records without damaging original artifacts. Berge's contribution reflects the project's dual purpose: providing work for artists during the Great Depression while creating a lasting catalog of American ingenuity. Today housed at the National Gallery of Art, Shirt exemplifies how even modest objects like clothing reveal cultural history, craftsmanship, and changing tastes. The Index remains a valuable resource for understanding the roots of American design.

About the Artist

Virginia Berge · 1855–present

Virginia Berge was an American artist active around 1935 whose surviving body of work consists of meticulously rendered watercolor and graphite illustrations of historic clothing and accessories. Her early life and formal training are not well documented. She is known exclusively through her participation in the Index of American Design, a Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration t...