Bertha E. Jaques, born Covington, OH - Winterberries - ca. 1926 - T-Shirt

Bertha E. Jaques's Winterberries turns a bare winter branch into a quiet, carefully observed study of berry-bearing wood.

Visual Elements & Composition

The branches are the subject, drawn with the fine, controlled line of a drypoint etching. Their forms are stripped of autumn leaves, so the eye moves along the structure of the wood, the clusters of winterberries, and the open spaces between them. Nothing is crowded. The composition gives each branch room, and the berries stand out as the one point of concentrated detail.

Meaning & Symbolism

Winter branches have long stood for endurance and quiet resilience through barren months, and the winterberry carries that meaning in its persistence. Jaques was a prominent figure in the American Etching Revival and a co-founder of the Chicago Society of Etchers. She spent her career looking closely at the natural world, and this print, made around 1926, shows the same attention she gave to the ordinary plant life around her. It finds beauty in the subtle details of the immediate environment that are easy to overlook.

On the Unisex Heavy Cotton Tee

An etching like this rewards close looking, and a tee is worn close to the body, so the branches are seen at the same scale they were drawn: intimate, not monumental. The design sits on the front of the shirt where it can be read at arm's length, matching the print's own scale. Wearing it puts a century-old study of quiet winter growth into an everyday setting.