Charles Burchfield: Creator of Symbolism in Art

Composed in black ink, watercolor wash, and crayon,
"Church Bells Ringing, Rainy Winter Night," is one of the finest examples of Burchfield's early creative period. It's a documentation of the terror Burchfield felt as a child upon encountering the booming sound of church bells on a dark and dreary night.

Note the sinister-looking windows and demonic-appearing motif in the sky.

How many of Birchfield's motifs and symbols do you recognize in this piece?

Charles Burchfield was born on April 9, 1893, in Ashtabula, Ohio, the fifth of six children. His father died when Charles was only four. Left penniless, his mother took the family back to her hometown of Salem, Ohio.

Burchfield showed a strong interest and talent for painting early on, as well as a love for nature. He was a shy child, and very reserved; from fifth grade until his senior year in high school, he had no close friends, and spent a large part of his time alone. Burchfield began working part time while in the seventh grade. An avid reader, when not working, painting, or attending school, he read anything he could get his hands on.

In 1917, Burchfield began incorporating symbols, motifs, and colors into his work to represent movement, sounds, moods, and sensations. During this period, his paintings took on a bold, expressionistic quality. His largest body of work was produced during this time, and many critics agree that he created his most significant work during this period.

In 1918, Burchfield was drafted into the U.S. Army. After being released in 1919, he did a series of water colors which, unfortunately, he later destroyed.

In 1921, Burchfield moved to Buffalo, New York, to work as a wallpaper designer for M.H. Birge & Sons Company. There, he met and married Bertha Kenreich. They had five children together. In 1929, Burchfield was able to quit his job working at a wallpaper company and support his household full time with his painting.

Although Burchfield spent most of his life in Buffalo, the greatest influences in his art are derived from his experiences while living as a child in rural Ohio--frolicking in the fields and woods, collecting wildflowers and pollywogs, minnows, moths, and other insects, as well as frequenting the local swimming hole.

Many of Burchfield's paintings represent classic Americana of the period, providing fascinating historical documents. Burchfield is best known for his American Scene paintings of the 1920s and '30s, where he combined nature scenes with views of small-town America. In the 1940s, Burchfield rejected this realism, returning to his earlier approach of focusing on nature, embracing his beloved expressionistic style of painting once again. During this time, Burchfield even managed to rework many of his older paintings, often pasting paper around the borders in order to extend them.

Burchfield experienced many ups and downs in his art career, continually changing his focus. He often experienced periods of time when he was unable to bring himself to paint. Thankfully, these bleak periods eventually passed, and Charles always rebounded with renewed vim and vigor.

From 1949--52, Burchfield taught art at the Art Institute of Buffalo. He also taught summer class at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, and the University of Buffalo, as well as the University of Minnesota, Duluth Branch, Duluth Minnesota. He also taught advanced seminar at Buffalo Fine Arts Academy.

In 1967, Charles Burchfield died of a heart attack in West Seneca, New York.

During his lifetime, Burchfield participated in many one-man exhibitions, and was the recipient of many awards and honors for his art.

Writing in his exhibition catalog of the University of Arizona Art Gallery (1965), Burchfield said that he believed 1917 to be the "golden year" of his career.

Many of Burchfield's original works are housed at the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College, New York, which was originally dedicated in Burchfield's honor in 1966.

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Amazon Editorial Review:
"Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) was an innovative visionary of American modernism, a watercolor painter who infused his landscapes of upstate New York and Ohio and scenes of small town industrialization with pulsing line and crackling, fluid color. He was also an accomplished writer who kept extensive journals and published several important essays during his lifetime. Burchfield's early watercolors were often strongly expressionistic, projecting a buoyant spirituality; he reached a critical juncture around 1920, when he turned to modernist pictorial strategies to express a severe geometry of houses, factories and barren trees, with skies traversed by stylized smoke. After moving to Buffalo in 1921, he became a founder of the Regionalist movement, but he returned to the dynamic expressionism of his youth in the 1940s; as he told a friend, "It is not that I am trying to escape real life, but that the realm of fantasy offers the true solution of truly evaluating an experience." Published for DC Moore Gallery's survey exhibition (and coinciding with the Whitney Museum's 2010 retrospective), this volume presents a career-wide selection of watercolors and drawings, many of which are drawn from private collections, and have never or very rarely been exhibited. The images are complemented by four autobiographical essays, spanning the years 1928 to 1965, which provide an intriguing window into the artist's complex personality. All are out of print and difficult to locate, making this catalogue an important reference source as well as a visually striking presentation of his work."

PERMANENT BURCHFIELD COLLECTION AT THE SPRINGFIELD MUSEUM OF ART

PERMANENT BURCHFIELD COLLECTION AT THE BURCHFIELD PENNEY ART CENTER

PODCAST: CHARLES BURCHFIELD: THE PROGRESSION OF AN ARTIST

SHOP FOR BURCHFIELD PRINTS AT ENCORE EDITIONS

CHARLES BURCHFIELD BIO ON BUTLERART.COM

THE BURCHFIELD HOMESTEAD SOCIETY

CHARLES BURCHFIELD ON ANSWERS.COM

THE BURCHFIELD PENNEY ART CENTER

CHARLES BURCHFIELD STORY IN HOME & GARDEN

"CHARLES BURCHFIELD'S SEASONS" BOOK

PURCHASE ORIGINAL CHARLES BURCHFIELD PAINTINGS ON ARTNET

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