Printed American Dress Silks

How does a nation forge a unique design identity? That was the question American silk manufacturers asked themselves after the First World War, when they faced a shortage of materials and creative exchange with Europe. Companies like Stehli Silks Corporation and Onondaga Silk Company began turning to domestic sources of inspiration for their printed silk dress fabrics. They realized that eye-catching designs could be a potent marketing tool that solidified both their brand and the nation’s artistic identity. 

Releasing textiles in limited print runs, these companies advertised them as uniquely American products that were informed by the country’s landscape, history, and culture. The patterns celebrated the nation’s legacy, pioneering spirit, and artistic and technological potential in fun, colorful printed textiles meant to be sewn into dresses. The CMA recognized the importance of these printed silks at the time, acquiring dozens of them as they were manufactured. These silks in the museum’s collection are the focus of the textile exhibition Expressively American: Printed Silks, 1927–1947.

Artists were key to the success and promotion of these fabrics. In the 1920s, while the Art Deco movement spread internationally, American artists began incorporating into their work stylistic elements like sharply delineated geometric forms and bold coloration. Committed to defining an American design aesthetic, Stehli Silks Corporation created a line of fabrics called Americana that are fashionably Art Deco yet depict uniquely American motifs like stars, skyscrapers, and industrial products. For its Americana line, Stehli Silks Corporation hired a creative director, Kneeland L’Amoureux “Ruzzie” Green, who commissioned more than 80 prints from artists like Charles Buckles Falls, an illustrator renowned for his strong and bold aesthetic using blocks of bright colors to create vibrant prints like Pegs. 

While the textile prints created in the 1920s and 1930s were typically done by roller printing, resulting in smaller pattern repeats and sharply delineated lines, by the 1940s, the cheaper screenprinting method became more widespread. The use of silkscreen techniques enabled designers to create textiles with larger and more varied  repeats, as well as more painterly designs. You can see this transition from the clean-edged Pegs to the more freely drawn Kittens at Play by Waldo Peirce.  

The CMA holds a significant number of silkscreen-printed fabrics from the 1940s, including nine from Onondaga Silk Company. In 1947, Onondaga Silk Company partnered with Midtown Galleries of New York City to produce a series of artist-designed textiles called the American Artist Print Series. Six American artists created 22 designs, from original paintings to finished garments, that were presented to the public in spring 1947, including at the CMA. Peirce’s Kittens at Play is portrayed here as both yardage and in a day dress worn by a model in a 1947 issue of Vogue. This design, while playful, looked chic once made into a fashionable dress. The printed silks produced by American firms from the 1920s to the 1940s gave women the opportunity to wear a ready-made or hand-sewn dress in a unique artist-designed pattern that spoke to the country’s vibrancy and promise.