The Prints of Charles Burchfield
Charles E. Burchfield (1893 - 1967) is primarily known for his
paintings, mostly in watercolor.
He did, however, do a few prints:
(at least) eleven etchings, eleven wood engravings, four lithographs,
and a serigraph.
Ten of his zinc plate etchings were exhibited with a show of his drawings
in Cleveland, Ohio in 1953.
The titles of the ten etchings are listed in the exhibit catalogue
by Leona Prasse (see reference below).
Another etching we may call "Cloud over Tree"
exists in the Burchfield Penny Art Center collection.
Aside from "The Beech Tree",
Burchfield's other etchings exist only as proofs pulled in 1919.
Some, or most, of these impressions seem to be unique, but at least in the case of
the etching titled
"Wellsville, Ohio", two impressions exist, one not signed or titled.
Here is one of the 1919 proofs
Freight Car
Here is another showing a quarry near Lisbon, Ohio
The Quarry
It is without doubt the Logtown Quarry,
which is now a popular rock-climbing site. (This the likely site
depicted
in Burchfield's 1919 painting "Trilliums and Rock Ledge".)
Here are nine of the wood engravings. They were done in collaboration
with Julius J. Lankes (1884 - 1960).
Burchfield did the drawings directly on the wood blocks and Lankes
then cut the blocks.
The first of these, "Uprooted Tree", is typical of Burchfield's approach
to nature. It is a perfectly
realistic image of at tree torn from the earth
by a storm, but from a point of view that suggests a
creature crying out in pain.
Uprooted Tree
The following images illustrate small-town America. Burchfield grew up in Salem, Ohio.
The Haymow
Gossips
Carolina Village
Saturday Night
There was also a plan with Lankes' brother Frank to publish an
illustrated edition of the Biblical book "Ecclesiastes".
While this project was never carried out,
Burchfield and J.J. Lankes completed four of the wood engravings.
The Heavens
The Whirling Wind
The Deserted City
This one is atypical for Burchfield, who avoided figure drawing!:
Cain and Abel
Sometime around 1940, Burchfield authorized a serigraph (i.e., silkscreen)
based on a 1916 watercolor. Burchfield's correspondence mentions
undertaking this project with the publisher Charles Boni. It is titled
Sunflowers and Red Barn
Burchfield himself didn't know how many were printed or how they were
distributed. Some auction listings say it was published in 1942 by
"American Living Art, Inc." (The edition size may have been 50, based
on another silkscreen they published.)
Burchfield wrote that it shows "sunflowers in our back alley, hot Aug.
sunlight, McCarty's red barn"
behind the
family home
in Salem, Ohio. While
this print looks rather abstract, it is based on close observation of the scene.
(The black horizontal stripe in the upper right, for example, is the
shadow of the eave of the house behind the barn.)
Czestochowski (below) doesn't list this work.
If anyone knows more about this print (date, edition, printer, etc.), I'd
like to hear from you.
The last prints Burchfield made were three lithographs. They are
very much in the style of his later paintings.
Here are scans of
these prints:
Summer Benediction
Crows in March
Autumn Wind
But that's not quite all. When the print dealer Sylvan Cole was looking through the estate of master lithographer Jacob Frieland, he recognized an image that was clearly by Burchfield. Cole brought it to the attention of Whitney curator David Kiehl, and the Whitney added it to their collection:
Lithograph. This lithograph probably dates fron around 1930. It shows a house by the side of the road, with a tree bearing a distinctive knot. This is clearly the same house in New Albany (just north of Salem) that appears in watercolors such as "Crickets in November". There is no known connection between Burchfield and Frieland.
References:
Czestochowski, Joseph S., The Published Prints of Charles E. Burchfield,
American Art Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2. (Nov., 1976), pp. 99-110.
Prasse, Leona E. The Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield, Catalogue of an Exhibition
at the
Cleveland Museum of Art, 1953. See pp 30-31, The Prints of Charles E. Burchfield.
Here is a lovely charcoal drawing of the Burchfield family home in Salem by Philip Koch:
Burchfield House.
This drawing, done in 2015, shows the back of the house, with the house next door
(the "Nightwind House") on the left.