Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) had an intensely personal, spiritualized view of the world. As highlighted by the exceptional group of watercolors and drawings in this exhibition, he was a keen observer of his surroundings, depicting scenes with which he was familiar, often imbuing them with a visionary sensibility that was deeply felt.

Among his earliest works are modernist views of his hometown of Salem, Ohio, and the surrounding countryside. After graduating from the Cleveland School of Art in 1916, he created many imaginative landscapes and developed a personal visual language of fantasy.

In Chestnut Trees of 1916, he transformed the natural world into an expressive pattern of abstracted, stylized forms in heightened color. Curling shapes cover the ground at the base of two large tree trunks, while intertwining lines enliven their bark. Buried deep in the center of the composition is a circular form that appears to be vibrating or emitting energy, linking the painting to what Burchfield once called his “rhapsodic fantasies” of the period.

Burchfield was also drawn to the urban landscape. In the 1920s and 30s, he often painted the austere imagery of industrial development and railroad yards, as well as the local architecture of towns and villages, including many views of his home in Gardenville, near Buffalo, New York. While he was striving for increased realism, he was not after literal depictions of the world around him. He was instead working towards a clarity of structure and design that was almost classical in form, while also poetic in feeling. In 1940, he wrote that he preferred to be known as a “romantic-realist,” adding that, “It is the romantic side of the real world that I portray. My things are poems—(I hope).”