Charles Ephraim Burchfield (1893-1967)

We would like to thank Nancy Weekly, Burchfield Scholar at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.


The present work depicts a swamp off Egypt Road in East Salem, Ohio. Charles Burchfield poetically wrote of the location in his journal entry of March 25th, 1916: "A sultry March day – The robins sang this morning – their calls are on all sides – I hear a song sparrow! Walk to Mullins – killdeer call from sky – I see one skimming the sun flooded sky – I wonder if I will even be able to paint Spring – At this season my mind wander in all directions – I cannot concentrate – P.M – Thru Post’s & to Trotter’s Swamp sketching – a wonderful afternoon – Dense blue haze – blue-bird, soft song over miry cornfield – song sparrows; a pair of chewinks – water running ever where; ground sinks softly under the boots – turf on pasture like loose skin on cow’s neck – clouds are glued to the sky; Bottoms flooded – a big feeling – to Trotter’s swamp – red winged blackbirds in hundreds; their calls, all coming at once sound like the creak – of a wagon on a bitterly cold day; if I listen closely, I detect many weird differences of notes. As I approach flooded swamp sinking deep in field; five geese fly up; a moment later & two splendid blue herons rise and flap ponderously northward; reflections of swamp growth startling – the glassy water mirrors the underbrush-. Sun in water – Blackbirds fringe the outer edge of the trees –" (Journals, vol. 27A, pp. 104-06)