1-4 p.m.
Sundays
May-September
For other
days of the year call
330-332-8601
one week in advance of
Your visit
The Burchfield Homestead Society
P.O. Box 317
Salem, Ohio, 44460
Office Phone...(330)337-9578
Society President Richard Wootten
Home Phone (330) 332-8601
E-mail: rwootten@neo.rr.com
|
"Mr. Burchfield sees nature with keen penetration. To him nothing is commonplace, everything is radiant, with beauty all its own. His pictures shock the observer into looking at nature from a new angle. Burchfield paints not merely what he sees, but in addition what he feels about what he sees. His pictures reflect states of mind induced by experiences with the outside world. His pictures reflect moods. They must be judged by those who feel, rather than those who carry a Kodak."  - Henry Turner Bailey, Dean
The Cleveland School of Art,
Quoted in 1917"Personally, I believe this young artist to be in advance of his times. He is without doubt, a genius and comes to the world to blaze a trail for the future art, of which his works are remarkable examples. His pictures have all the qualities of greatness." - Georgia Leighton Norton, Director
The Cleveland School of Art,
Quoted in 1917."It is the art of a man who wanders alone amid a world of never-ceasing wonders, Shelley-like in his sensitivity. His art is Expressionism in the best sense of the word. It is founded on keen feelings, reflective organization, bringing every sense into the play. His pictures have tactile, auditory and sometimes even gustatory sensation brought into the visual adventure. Visual adventure is the keynote of his art." - Henry G. Keller, painter, teacher
The Cleveland School of Art ,
Quoted in 1917."Burchfield has exacted a quality that we may call poetic, romantic, lyric, or what you will. By sympathy with the particular, he has made it epic and universal." - Edward Hopper, artist
Quoted in 1928"One of the most isolated and original phenomena in American art." - Alfred Barr, Director
Museum of Modern Art, commenting on the
Museum’s 1930 Burchfield exhibit. "The Whitney museum’s major retrospective showing 114 Burchfield paintings and sketches rated a resounding critics’ salute and established him, at 62, as the greatest living U.S. watercolorist." - Time Magazine, January 23, 1956 "Nature acted upon him like a catalyst, stimulating his imagination, memory, and emotion, and releasing a vein of fantasy quite unique in our art. No realist painter of the century got as near to nature or found in it so profound a source of inspiration." - John Baur, Director emeritus
Whitney Museum of Art, author of Burchfield’s
1982 biography, The Inlander. "The scope of Burchfield’s ambition and the intensity of his vision are remarkable and entitle him to be considered one of the greatest watercolorists of all time, deserving a place in the tiny band of masters that include Blake, Turner and Winslow Homer" - Christopher Finch, author of American
Watercolors, published in 1984. "A gregarious painter friend of mine tells me that the Burchfield show is being fervently discussed in downtown studios and upstate summer retreats. Burchfield’s qualities are opposite the shallow groupthink of facile theatricality that have been boring the hell out of many of us lately. His poignant example suggests the wisdom that the way up is often the way down." - Peter Schjeldahl, Village Voice critic commenting on the 1993 Burchfield show at the Drawing Center of New York. "No other American painter could have done it. Genius is always unique." - Guy Davenport, author of the 1994 book Charles Burchfield’s Seasons, commenting on a painting titled “Summer Solstice". "A common man who became an uncommon artist, Charles Burchfield was one of a kind, a genuine American original. He would have had it no other way." - Stephen May, art writer for American Arts Quarterly among other national publications. |