Lot 29
  • 29

Charles Burchfield 1893 - 1967

Estimate
300,000 - 500,000 USD
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Description

  • Charles Burchfield
  • Cicada Song in September
  • Signed with the artist's monogrammed initials CEB and dated 1956 (lower left); also titled and dated "Cicada Song in September"/40 x 33/(September) 1956 on the reverse
  • Watercolor on joined paper mounted on board
  • 39 1/4 by 32 3/4 inches
  • (99.7 by 83.2 cm)

Provenance

Frank K.M. Rehn Galleries, New York
Dr. and Mrs. Theodor Braasch, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (acquired from the above and sold: Sotheby Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, May 24, 1972, lot 134, illustrated)
Frank K.M. Rehn Galleries, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Sold: Sotheby's, New York, May 27, 1993, lot 87, illustrated
Acquired at the above sale by A. Alfred Taubman

Exhibited

Buffalo, New York, Upton Hall Gallery, State University College at Buffalo, Charles Burchfield: Recent Paintings, April-May 1963, no. 17, p. 12
Cleveland, Ohio, The Cleveland Institute of Art, Charles Burchfield Drawings, 1945-1965, February-March 1966
Buffalo, New York, The Charles Burchfield Center, Buffalo State University College, Exhibition in Connection with Burchfield Commemorative Program, October 1967-January 1968
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. 1141, p. 264
Matthew Baigell, Charles Burchfield, New York, 1976, illustrated p. 176

Catalogue Note

According to Joseph S. Trovato, this work was executed in a wooded area near Buffalo, New York.

“Nature is always new, always fresh, and in this respect it is alone among the aesthetic enjoyments, unless perhaps it is a rare strain of music, a painting or piece of literature, not yet put to the test. There are works of art in all of these which we think would never grow old to us, yet never putting [i.e., put] them to a test, or more truthfully, [are] never afforded an opportunity to do so. Nature, contrariwise, is rigorously tried every day, every hour and comes forth from each trial victorious and serene. Thus we may for a score [of] succeeding days hear the ‘brassy crescendo’ of a cicada at precisely the same hour, and each day we listen to it as intently and whole-heartedly as tho hearing it the first time. We may see the wind shake sunshine from the pliant poplar leaves day after day, and still continue to marvel at the divine beauty of it.”

—Charles Burchfield
(J. Benjamin Townsend, ed., Charles Burchfield's Journals: The Poetry of Place, Albany, New York, 1993, p. 379-80)