George Elbert Burr, born Monroe Falls, - Untitled (transfer drawing for Storm near Timberline) - ca. 1922 - T-Shirt

A single wind-bent tree grips a rocky outcrop while a storm sweeps across the sky behind it, rendered in warm sepia pencil.

Visual Elements & Composition

The tree leans sharply to the right, its trunk twisting and splitting near the base, with gnarled limbs streaming out to the left and small clusters of foliage clinging to the upper branches. Angular boulders anchor the lower half of the sheet, with more stone along the right edge. The sky is built from fine diagonal strokes that sweep across the drawing, with soft cloud forms banked behind the tree. Sepia tan dominates the palette, lifted by pale cream highlights and deepened by dark sepia shadows. The signature sits in the lower right and a monogram, GB, in the lower left.

Meaning & Symbolism

The title places the scene at timberline, the high edge of the mountain zone where trees grow stunted and wind-shaped. The bent tree and the slanting sky together show weather pressing hard on a plant adapted to harsh conditions. Its position at the centre of the storm makes the moment one of endurance rather than violence, a theme common in American landscape art of the period that treated mountain weather as a test of resilience. George Elbert Burr, an American artist known for drawings, etchings and paintings of western scenery, dates this sheet to around 1922. His interest in the textures of wind and rock comes through in the directional hatching and restrained tonal range.

Carried Onto Cotton

A drawing built on fine directional lines reads well at chest scale, where the sweep of the sky and the tree's twisting trunk can be taken in at a glance. The design sits on the front of the shirt as a single, self-contained scene, so the wind-bent tree remains the focal point wherever you wear it. Its sepia tones keep the image quiet and earthy against the shirt.