Friday, December 8, 2017–Saturday, March 24, 2018
Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Winter Solstice, 1920-21; watercolor on paper, 21 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches; Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH, Gift off Ferdinand Howald, 1931
From
the year of his birth in Ashtabula Harbor (now Ashtabula) until 1921,
American watercolor painter Charles E. Burchfield lived mostly in his
native state of Ohio. The majority of that time was spent in the city of
Salem, living in a small house on East Fourth Street with his mother
and five siblings. In a biographical note, written later in life,
Burchfield recalled:
While I think of
1915 as the true beginning of my career as an artist, I suppose it was
evident in earliest years that I was destined to be an artist… I was in
fact using water-color before I went to the first grade.
By the time he entered high school, Burchfield’s artistic
inclinations where already quite evident. Very early paintings exist
from that time that suggest the direction he would go later in life. Untitled (Snow on Rooftops), 1907,
shown here for the first time, was painted when he was 14 years old.
The composition of overlapping buildings, accented by drifts of snow
sagging off the rooftops, and warm light coming from the windows lays
the foundation for later works like New Moon in January, 1918 or Church Bells Ringing, Rainy Winter Night, 1917. Another work Untitled (Orange Sky Over City Buildings), December 2, 1907 forshadows later industrial landscapes like Factories (Red Buildings), 1920.
In 1911 a bought of typhoid fever delayed his entry into college by one year. During that time he wrote that he “read John Burroughs and Thoreau and wrote in my journals in unconscious imitation of them.”
This was around the same time that his interest in the natural world
really began to blossom. In November of that year he found two books at
the library in Salem, which fascinated him, and perhaps led to his
naturalist inclinations. On November 13, 1911 he found[i] Wild Flowers Every Child Should Know[ii]and the next day[iii] the Field book of American Wildflowers.[iv] These books would inspire more than 500 botanical drawings, that listed the plants location and scientific name. Some, like Untitled [Arrowhead], 1912 where painted in watercolor.
This fascination with plant life would
remain strong throughout his career. Many of the wildflowers he recorded
during those early years would appear again and again in paintings.
Some would be included in the titles of works. Others like the spring
beauty would not, but his fascination was just as strong. In another
journal recollection from his early youth he wrote:
Once I raked away some leaves and
found a spring beauty bulb with a shoot starting up; I carefully dug it
up, took it home and put it in a can full of water, and while winter
snows were still raging, one little star-like flower opened up in a
hostile world.
In 1912, Burchfield left home to attend the Cleveland School of Art (now the Cleveland Institute of Art), graduating in 1916. He wrote later that his professor Henry Keller had once said that his “concentration on two dimensional design pattern, amounted almost to genius.” Paintings from that period like Illuminated letter “O”, ca. 1912 or Illuminated “M” Design, ca. 1912 are included in the exhibition. Henry Turner Bailey, head of the school would later suggest that he send this work to the M.H. Birge & Sons Wallpaper Company in Buffalo. On the strength of this work he was eventually hired.
The following fall he went to New York City to study at the National Academy of Design. He dropped out after just one day. Drawings from his time there, like New York City Vista, 1916 illustrate the streets of Manhattan.
His return to Salem would bring about some of the most important works
of his career. He later wrote about the transition in a biographical
note:
Forgotten were the frustrations
and the longing for more freedom. The big city was not for me. I was
back home in the town and countryside where I had grown up, which were
now transformed by the magic of an awakened art outlook.
The year 1917 would come to be known as
his Golden Year, a time of feverish and visionary production that would
later be the subject of the first one-man exhibition at the Museum of
Modern Art. After serving at Camp Jackson (now Fort Jackson), South
Carolina, where he designed camouflage for the Army in 1918, he returned
to Salem, and eventually married Bertha Kenreich. The couple would
later mover to Buffalo, where Burchfield accepted a job at the M.H.
Birge and Sons wallpaper company.
The exhibition Charles E. Burchfield:
The Ohio Years, 1893-1921, presents painting, drawing and ephemera from
Burchfield’s formative years, before he had the family, gallerist, and
career that would define the rest of his life. This is the first
exhibition in a series that will cover Burchfield’s entire career. Next
December the Burchfield Penney will present an exhibition focusing on
his middle period, with his late works being presented in December of
the following year.
