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.