Arlene Perkins

Arlene Perkins was active as a designer and documentarian during a focused period spanning 1935 to 1941. Her documented professional output relates exclusively to the study and preservation of American decorative arts, specifically historical textile patterns.

Perkins's contribution is recorded primarily through her involvement with the "index of american designs," a documentation effort focused on cataloging historical American artifacts and decorative objects. Five documented pieces, held in museum collections, demonstrate her focus on applied design history. These works include two studies listed simply as Bedspread, the documentation titled Historical Printed Cotton, and two pieces classified as Printed Textile and Printed Textile - Historical. These examples confirm her concentration on detailed pattern recognition and textile analysis rather than traditional fine art painting.

The historical significance of Perkins’s documentation is validated by its inclusion in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art. The five pieces preserved by the museum underscore her lasting contribution to the field of American design archiving. Today, the detailed documentation present in Arlene Perkins prints is frequently utilized by researchers, often available as high-quality prints or downloadable artwork through institutional archives.