The Collection of A. Alfred Taubman: American Art

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Lot 20
  • 20

Charles Burchfield 1893 - 1967

Estimate
300,000 - 500,000 USD
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Description

  • Charles Burchfield
  • Lightning at Twilight
  • Signed with the artist's monogrammed initials CEB and dated 1950-55 (lower left); also titled and dated 1950-55/"Lightning at Twilight"/30 x 40 on the reverse
  • Watercolor on joined paper mounted on board
  • 29 3/4 by 40 inches
  • (75.6 by 101.6 cm)

Provenance

Estate of Margaret McLennan Morse (acquired from the artist)
Private Collection (by descent and sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 27, 1999, lot 14, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Exhibited

Santa Barbara, California, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, March-April 1968 (and on loan)

Literature

Joseph S. Trovato, Charles Burchfield: Catalogue of Paintings in Public and Private Collections, Utica, New York, 1970, no. 1129, p. 258
J. Benjamin Townsend, ed., Charles Burchfield's Journals: The Poetry of Place, Albany, New York, 1993, p. 681n59

Catalogue Note

"There followed then one of the most amazing experiences we ever had …we were on the southern edge of the storm gradually entering it—What made it so unusual was that bolts of lightning were continually streaking to earth in front of us—These were not the river-like bolts ordinarily seen in great masses of cloud but complete wavy bars of blinding lightning cold blue across a sky of hot saffron yellows, or yellow saturated dark clouds—unattached to earth or sky—existing free in space. They were indescribably beautiful."

—Charles Burchfield
(J. Benjamin Townsend, ed., Charles Burchfield's Journals: The Poetry of Place, Albany, New York, 1993, p. 283)