Lot 13
  • 13

Charles Burchfield 1893 - 1967

Estimate
250,000 - 350,000 USD
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Description

  • Charles Burchfield
  • The Violet
  • Signed with the artist's monogrammed initials CEB and dated 1952 (lower right); also titled, dated and inscribed "The Violet" 1952/(Near The Cattaraugus Canyon-East of Gowanda, N.Y.)/Given to my wife–May, 1959 on the reverse
  • Watercolor on paper mounted on board
  • 33 by 25 inches
  • (83.8 by 63.5 cm)

Provenance

Mrs. Charles Burchfield, 1959 (gift from the artist)
Frank K.M. Rehn Galleries, New York
Private Collection, Chicago, Illinois (and sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 1, 1988, lot 286, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Exhibited

Southfield, Michigan, Lawrence Technological University, Selections from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. A. Alfred Taubman, April 2011, illustrated in color n.p.

Literature

Joseph S. Trovato, Charles Burchfield: Catalogue of Paintings in Public and Private Collections, Utica, New York, 1970, no. 1099, p. 246

Catalogue Note

Charles Burchfield wrote of a day trip to Gowanda in 1941: “A day of such deep peace and happiness, that I find it difficult to put down on paper my impressions of it… My spirit was in complete harmony with the world of nature, and absorbed every sight and sound with a completeness, that has not been my lot for many a month.

“In the first place, I was going back into country that I had discovered back in 1923, and had grown to love thru the early years of my married life. To find this country virtually unchanged, and more beautiful than ever, was like being able to go back to an earlier period of one’s life, a renewal of youth and faith.

“…As the day wore on, I felt my spiritual—and even physical—strength being renewed until at last I felt completely young again, with the whole vast world newly created, and as primitive and raw-ly beautiful as to the first human eye that looked at it with love” (J. Benjamin Townsend, ed., Charles Burchfield's Journals: The Poetry of Place, Albany, New York, 1993, p. 374).