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# 13 on map.
The Three Trees, Salem - 1931-46 Hosted by Salem Public Library, 821 E. State St. |
The Three Trees is a painting of a real place, one that was very important to artist Charles Burchfield and many other Salem natives. In the early 1900s Salem was on one hand a bustling growing industrial town, full of factories, noise, and smoke, and on the other hand on the edge of farms, and forests where wildflowers and songbirds could be found. The Burchfield family lived in a closely knit neighborhood on East Fourth Street, which stopped abruptly just a block away from their home. At the end of the street there was a little patch of woods and an open field, part of the extensive Andalusia Dairy Farm. This field still existed until around 1957, when it was cleared for the construction of the present Salem Senior High School, and the First Christian Church. A hint of the former woods is still there today.
Back in 1917, farmers tolerated small boys who visited their pastures to play hide and seek in the tall grass, or make forts of downed trees, and fence with pieces of reed and grass. The Three Trees pasture was the site of many walks and picnics for all the neighborhood children, including Charles Burchfield and his three brothers and two sisters. He notes often in his journals that he was “near the Three Trees, sketching.”
The memories of those occasions were apparently strong in his mind because when he heard that two of the trees had been felled by a tornado in 1925 he “was seized with a desire to re-create them in a picture.” He finally began that painting in 1932, but it lay unfinished until 1946, when he completed it just in time for its dedication as a gift to the Salem Public Library by Alice MacMillan, in memory her father Joel MacMillan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the MacMillan Book Shop.
This photograph was found among the family albums, originally in the possession of Charles Burchfield’s older sister Louise, that other relatives shared with the Burchfield Homestead Society. It is unlabeled and undated but is clearly the field with the Three Trees in the background. They were elms, and arerecognizable by their spreading branch canopy. This is pure conjecture on our part, but the boys in the photograph could be farm workers or some of the neighborhood lads who used to follow Charles around as he sketched. The neighborhood boys included Don Smith (whose father ran Smith Garage at the corner of Third Street and Rose Avenue), Elmer and Herbert Bush, (who lived with their mother and grandmother in the tiny house across the alley from the Burchfields), and Bill Reynolds, (who lived just at the end of Fourth Street). The young men are dapper in their caps, flannel jackets, and ties.
Back in 1917, farmers tolerated small boys who visited their pastures to play hide and seek in the tall grass, or make forts of downed trees, and fence with pieces of reed and grass. The Three Trees pasture was the site of many walks and picnics for all the neighborhood children, including Charles Burchfield and his three brothers and two sisters. He notes often in his journals that he was “near the Three Trees, sketching.”
The memories of those occasions were apparently strong in his mind because when he heard that two of the trees had been felled by a tornado in 1925 he “was seized with a desire to re-create them in a picture.” He finally began that painting in 1932, but it lay unfinished until 1946, when he completed it just in time for its dedication as a gift to the Salem Public Library by Alice MacMillan, in memory her father Joel MacMillan on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the MacMillan Book Shop.
This photograph was found among the family albums, originally in the possession of Charles Burchfield’s older sister Louise, that other relatives shared with the Burchfield Homestead Society. It is unlabeled and undated but is clearly the field with the Three Trees in the background. They were elms, and arerecognizable by their spreading branch canopy. This is pure conjecture on our part, but the boys in the photograph could be farm workers or some of the neighborhood lads who used to follow Charles around as he sketched. The neighborhood boys included Don Smith (whose father ran Smith Garage at the corner of Third Street and Rose Avenue), Elmer and Herbert Bush, (who lived with their mother and grandmother in the tiny house across the alley from the Burchfields), and Bill Reynolds, (who lived just at the end of Fourth Street). The young men are dapper in their caps, flannel jackets, and ties.
Photo of young men in the field with the actual Three Trees in the background.
From the collection of the Burchfield Homestead Society.
From the collection of the Burchfield Homestead Society.