Man's Shirt c. 1937

Henry De Wolfe made this drawing of a ‘Man’s Shirt’ sometime in the 20th century, we don’t know exactly when. There's something so charming about the directness of this image, the red and grey stripes marching down the shirtfront, and the way he captures the folds and gathers of the sleeves. It’s like a blueprint, but softer, somehow human. You can see another, fainter, shirt lurking in the background, like a ghostly echo of the first. The paper itself has a warmth, a kind of gentle aging that gives the whole thing a feeling of nostalgia. Each line seems carefully considered, yet there’s a looseness, a freedom in the way the shirt is rendered that reminds me of the work of Josef Albers, who also found endless inspiration in the simplest of forms. It's a reminder that art is really just about seeing, and finding beauty in the everyday.