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:
one etching, eleven wood engravings, and three lithographs.
Here are six 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
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 next series of images illustrate small-town America:
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.
Here is one such (atypical for Burchfield, who avoided figure drawing!):
Cain and Abel
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
Finally, sometime around 1940, Burchfield worked with Charles Boni to
produce a serigraph
(i.e., a silkscreen) after a 1916 watercolor.
It is called
Sunflowers and Red Barn
Burchfield himself didn't know how many were printed or how they were
distributed.
While the design looks abstract, it is actually a realistic
image. Burchfield wrote that it shows
"sunflowers in our back alley, hot Aug. sunlight, McCarty's red barn"
in Salem, Ohio.
Czestochowski (below) doesn't list this print.
If anyone knows more about this print (date, edition, printer, etc.), I'd
like to hear from you.
Reference:
Czestochowski, Joseph S., The Published Prints of Charles E. Burchfield,
~~~~~~American Art Journal, Vol. 8, No. 2. (Nov., 1976), pp. 99-110.