Burchfield Botanicals

American painter and visionary artist Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) is best known for his passionate watercolors of nature scenes and townscapes. Between the years 1908 and 1911, when Burchfield was still a teenager, he created nearly 500 botanical sketches that show the wide variety of wildflowers and plants he found in the forests and fields around his childhood home. Using books from the local library, Burchfield identified and catalogued these plants, along with the location at which he found them. These sketches from Burchfield’s young life provide some of the earliest evidence of his artistic ambitions and are a testament to his life-long fascination with the natural world. This exhibition features Burchfield masterworks paired with his early botanical sketches.

Also included are objects from the Marchand Wildflower Collection at the Buffalo Museum of Science. Paul Marchand (1904-96), whose father trained as a sculptor with Auguste Rodin in Paris, created the Hall of Plant Life in 1936 with his brother George. Marchand is well known throughout the world for his meticulous craftsmanship. He created scientifically accurate and visually stunning casts of flowers and mushrooms as well as dioramas for the museum throughout his career.

Organized by the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY

Sponsored by Group One Sotheby’s International Realty

IMAGE: Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Wind-Blown Asters, 1951, 30″ x 40″, watercolor on paper, Collection of Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College, Buffalo, NY, Gift of Dr. Edna M. Lindemann, 1968.
HEADER IMAGE: Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Violet (detail), ca. 1911, watercolor and pencil on paper, 9” x 7”, Charles E. Burchfield Foundation Archives, Gift of the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation.