Two Fence Posts

Charles Ephraim BurchfieldWW-1937-058601

1937·Watercolor, with gouache and traces of charcoal on cream wove paper, laid down on gray wood-pulp laminate board·67.8 × 47.5 cm (26 3/4 × 18 3/4 in.)

<p>Charles Burchfield received his artistic training at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he was exposed to Asian art, including Chinese painting and Japanese prints. An inspired practitioner of watercolor, his work focused on the natural world and the effects of industrialization on small-town America. According to Burchfield’s friend Edward Hopper, “The work of Charles Burchfield is most decidedly founded, not on art, but on life, and the life that he knows and loves best.” The artist kept many sketchbooks and journals; an excerpt from one of these has been linked to <em>Two Fence Posts</em>: “Give effect of light coming from above—blend as mass to lighter & finally have only an outline of mass, which itself thins out toward the light.”</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1937
Medium: Watercolor, with gouache and traces of charcoal on cream wove paper, laid down on gray wood-pulp laminate board
Dimensions: 67.8 × 47.5 cm (26 3/4 × 18 3/4 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Charles Ephraim Burchfield

Artist

Charles Ephraim Burchfield

Painting

Charles Ephraim Burchfield was an American painter and visionary artist, known for his passionate watercolors of nature scenes and townscapes. The largest collection of Burchfield's paintings, archives and journals are in the collection of the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo. His paintings are in the collections of more than 109 museums in the USA and have been the subject of exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hammer Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art, as well as other prominent institutions.

Ashtabula Harbor, OH, USA

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