Burchfield Penney Art Center
March 7 — May 23, 2010
The Archives
The Charles E. Burchfield Archive is an extraordinary archive of drawings, sketches, texts and other materials relating to the life and artwork of Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967) and makes the Burchfield Penney the ultimate destination for visitors and scholars interested in Burchfield to see and use its unique and comprehensive Burchfield collections.
The Charles E. Burchfield Foundation Archives consists more than 25,000 items including 62 volumes of Burchfield’s journals, which are seminal texts dating from 1909 to 1965. The majority of its contents are artworks including Burchfield’s seminal drawings, Conventions for Abstract Thoughts (1917) and the watercolor The Studio, as well as fragments of paintings being reconstructed, portfolios of studies, drawings, tracings, and hundreds of sketchbooks and handmade albums of drawings. Archival objects include 23 albums documenting approximately 1,128 paintings and drawings in black and white photographs that trace Burchfield’s career as well as his representation by the Kennedy Galleries in New York City from the late 1960s until 2005. Additional documentary materials include journals, notations about events, memories, and artist’s ideas; clippings, and other memorabilia.
After years of examining the materials and researching relationships between studies and finished paintings —literally investigating thousands of drawings —Weekly described some of her observations:
The Charles E. Burchfield Foundation Archives is a treasure trove of material providing insight into Burchfield’s analytical approach to his subjects. He invested a tremendous effort in learning the details of potential subjects and in plotting the construction of compositions, particularly for works he altered after an earlier state had been produced (and sometimes even exhibited). In many ways I see the process as a type of physical training, or muscle memory, repeating fluid moves in conté crayon or pencil, loosening up before attempting the final strokes with a brush and watercolor, which in turn prepared the artist to act with a more improvisational action to transfer ideas to image. Clearly, this process was so significant that Burchfield kept, stored, organized, and collected into albums all manner of drawings, from the most minute, minimal sketches that are literally just a few lines on a torn corner of a page, to elaborate, detailed blueprints, some with grids superimposed for easier translation to a larger scale. Interspersed throughout the albums of drawings are texts without images, as well as notations that take various forms. They remark on color (as the images are in black and white.) They plot out compositional alterations. But they also chronicle a monologue, often chastising in nature, urging the artist to push himself beyond realism to greater levels of expression and creativity. Many times these exhortations urge retrospective thoughts to trigger memory and the representation of gloom, hardship, agony, the ominous, and fantasy. On the other hand, some drawings depict the most lyrical, loving observations of trees and wildflowers, swift weather patterns, and beauty in the mundane.
As the only study center in the world dedicated to Charles E. Burchfield, the Burchfield Penney Art Center is in the distinctive position of providing concentrated attention to extending a deeper understanding of the artist. The Charles E. Burchfield Foundation Archives not only provide previously unpublished biographical material, but it also substantially documents Burchfield’s artistic process. It will shed fresh light on the life and career of this esteemed American artist.
Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Ave. Buffalo, NY 14222 www.BurchfieldPenney.org