Burchfield, Charles, 1893–1967, American painter, b. Ashtabula, Ohio, studied at the Cleveland School of Art. Living at first in Ohio, then moving (1925) to upstate New York, he worked (1921–20) as a wallpaper designer. His paintings, predominantly in watercolor, fall into three periods: from 1916 to the early 1920s, poetic evocations of nature; from the early 1920s to the early 1940s, bold, somber landscapes and urban scenes; and after 1943, a return to lyric expressions of nature, painted with a heightened sense of emotion. Although Burchfield is widely known for his depiction of crumbling Victorian mansions, false-front stores, railroad yards, and other relics of late-19th-century small-town America, his most successful works are usually considered to be his intense, boldly drawn, and highly colored portrayals of nature. Weather and sunlight effects are important in all his works, and along with his friend and contemporary Edward Hopper Hopper, Edward, 1882–1967, American painter and engraver, b. Nyack, N.Y., studied in New York City with Robert Henri. Hopper lived in France for a year but was little influenced by the artistic currents there.
..... Click the link for more information. , he is considered a founder of American Scene painting. Among his many works in museums are Setting Sun through the Catalpas (Cleveland Mus. of Art), October (Columbus Gall. of Fine Art, Ohio), Freight Cars under a Bridge (Detroit Inst. of Arts), and An April Mood (Whitney Mus., New York City).

Bibliography

See The Drawings of Charles Burchfield with text by the artist (1968); Charles Burchfield's Journals (ed. by J. B. Townsend, 1992); biography by J. Baur (1982).

Burchfield, Charles (Ephraim)

(born April 9, 1893, Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio, U.S.—died Jan. 10, 1967, Gardenville, N.Y.) U.S. painter. He attended the Cleveland School of Art and, after service in World War I, worked as a wallpaper designer in Buffalo, N.Y. In the 1920s and '30s he was one of the leading painters of American life; his work was associated with Edward Hopper's in its portrayal of the loneliness and bleakness of small-town life (e.g., November Evening, 1934). In the 1940s he abandoned realism for a more personal interpretation of nature, emphasizing its mystery, movement, and colour from season to season (e.g., The Sphinx and the Milky Way, 1946).

Burchfield, Charles (Ephraim) (1893–1967) painter; born in Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio. Although he attended Cleveland School of Art and briefly lived in New York City (1916), he spent most of his life in small towns in Ohio and upstate New York, and it was not until about 1929 that he could escape the factory jobs to devote himself to art. Known primarily for his watercolors, his works drawn from nature, such as February Thaw (1920), often conveyed an almost sinister mood, while his vision of urban America, as in Black Iron (1935), seem imbued with a sense of melancholy. His paintings of railroads and mines, commissioned by Fortune magazine in the late 1930s, brought his work to a wider public.