Charles E. Burchfield American, 1893-1967

Sunflower in Backyard testifies to Burchfield’s masterful skill as a watercolorist and innovative approach to light and color. Deeply committed to watercolor, Burchfield chose to work in the medium exclusively by 1938, achieving increasing complexity and pushing the material boundaries of the technique over the course of his career. Burchfield developed the foundation for his unique creative lexicon from 1915 to 1917, drawing from his careful observations of nature, including sunflowers, such as the subject of the present work. During his mature period, the artist often revisited his earlier compositions and subjects, sometimes through the lens of a new scale.

In Sunflower in Backyard, Burchfield depicted his home and studio, resplendent in late fall afternoon sun, as he described in his journal: “Oct. 29 (Saturday) / P.M. sketch of view showing gable end of studio, our house & fence-row – brilliant October sunlight emotion.”[1] A monumental sunflower rises from the lower register, occupying the immediate foreground of the composition. Directly behind it, Burchfield enshrouded a large tree with a luminous halo effect and rendered its uppermost leaves with lively mark-making that nearly evaporates into the sky. This passage points to a visual expression of the energy of rustling leaves, rather than the forms of the leaves themselves, and exemplifies Burchfield’s “highly developed audio-visual capabilities,” which scholars have interpreted today as synesthesia.[2] Throughout the composition, Burchfield layered highly saturated, nearly neon hues of green and yellow on top of the primary pictorial layer leading the overall scene to vibrate with a pulsing energy.

[1] Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, Vol. LI, October 29, 1949, 16.

[2] Nancy Weekly, Charles E. Burchfield: Inexhaustible, New York: Menconi + Schoelkopf, 2021, 7.