George Elbert Burr, born Monroe Falls, - Untitled (Sedge Grasses) - 1889 - T-Shirt

A fine pen-and-ink study of sedge and grass stems, with star-shaped spikelets and feathery plumes rising from the base of the sheet.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built from thin, precise lines and small dark accents of black ink on an off-white ground, and most of the paper is left open. Slender stems rise from the lower edge and bend at their own angles. Compact, star-like clusters sit at the tips of some stems, while others end in soft, bristling spikes or loose, feathery plumes. Long, narrow leaves arch across the stems, and a few fine seed-head branches hang to the left. No text or numerals appear in the image.

Meaning & Symbolism

Sedges and grasses of wet ground and field edges were a frequent subject of nineteenth-century naturalist drawing, because their seed heads and growth habit reveal a plant's structure with unusual clarity. Gathered on one sheet, the varied spikelets, from tight stars to loose plumes, record a range of species and stages of growth. Burr, an American artist active in the late nineteenth century, made this 1889 sheet as part of his body of botanical studies of wild plants. Its careful attention to the form of each cluster places it within the period's practice of recording native flora with accuracy.

Carried on the Tee

A drawing this open and linear suits a shirt, where the stems can run across the chest and the arching leaves can follow the wearer's own movement. Each stem bends and rises independently, so the design reads as a set of separate studies rather than one tight motif. Worn close to the body, the fine ink lines stay legible up close, which is how a study of this scale is meant to be seen.