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.

According to Nancy Weekly, the present work depicts a view from the artist's yard in West Seneca, New York, with the former St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of Clinton Street visible in the background. The work notably includes the artist's audiocryptogram motifs for the sound of cicadas emanating from trees. A note in the artist's journal from 1950 suggests his initial conception for Cicada Sun, reading, "A warm sunny day. P.M. – Painting of view to S.W. from back of Pavilion. – I had a feeling when I was done of going too far from realism." (C.E. Burchfield, Journals, August 17, 1950.)