Burchfield Exhibition Travels to the Arkell Museum at Canajoharie

The Burchfield Penney Art Center is sharing some of its Charles Burchfield collection with the Arkell Museum at Canajoharie in upstate New York with a traveling exhibition titled Surrounded: Sampling Burchfield's Wallpaper. It opens Friday, June 26, 2015 with a reception from 6:30-8:30 P.M. The exhibition was curated by Nancy Weekly, Head of Collections and Charles Cary Rumsey Curator, and was originally presented at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, December 12, 2009-February 7, 2010. This new presentation, curated specifically for The Arkell Museum, also includes studies for the Arkell’s Burchfield painting Dawn Over the City, a view of Buffalo from the Hamburg Street Bridge by Seneca Street, which was painted in 1928 when Burchfield also designed wallpapers. Ms. Weekly will give a gallery talk at the opening reception from 7:00-7:30 P.M.

About the Exhibition:
The lure of a full-time job motivated Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967) to move from his hometown of Salem, Ohio to Buffalo, New York. From November 1921 to August 1929, he worked at the M. H. Birge & Sons Company, eventually becoming one of their best wallpaper designers. His designs were so highly regarded that they eventually printed his name in the selvage.

Burchfield based many of his early designs on watercolors that he had painted in Ohio. Later designs were either company determined variations on traditional themes or imaginative designs based on his special view of nature. During this eight year period, Burchfield felt compelled to support his family through this steady job, yet he fantasized about spending quality time on his own landscape painting. This stifling conflict, as well as increased administrative duties, finally motivated him to break loose and pursue his dream of independence.

Surrounded: Sampling Burchfield's Wallpaper highlights works from the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s collection including color variations of wallpapers produced with rollers, original painted designs for wallpapers and coordinating fabrics known as cretonnes, as well as panels from the complex, block-printed wallpaper, Country Life and the Hunt (1924). This special edition scenic wallpaper had originally been installed in a private home, but had been removed and the rolls languished in an antique store in New England before being purchased by the museum in 1999 with funds donated by Gail and John Greenberger. When placed side by side, the panels measure approximately 6 feet high by 32 feet long, providing a narrative scene of hounds and equestrian hunters who are in pursuit of an elusive fox on a path through woods and hills. These large panels form the only complete example of this wallpaper known to exist. Through great care, Country Life and the Hunt was restored by paper conservator Patricia D. Hamm, with assistance of Eileen Saracino, James D. Hamm, and Tracy Dulniak. A narrow strip of the wallpaper featuring hunting dogs in pursuit of the fox was originally missing, but has specifically been recreated by the museum’s design team White Bicycle in collaboration with IMG_INK for the traveling exhibition.

Weighing the pros and cons of Burchfield’s artistic production during his wallpaper years of the 1920s, Curator Weekly stated: “In a hotel room, author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is purported to have uttered the dying words, ‘My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.’ These sentiments reflect Burchfield’s eventual desire to leave the Birge Company and the constraints of commercial design, despite his success. In retrospect, we can see that during those eight years, he contributed fresh designs that reflected his appreciation for trees and wildflowers, as well as a playful sense of space, repetitive design, and abstraction.”

Here is a brief statement that Nancy Weekly provided to contextualize the exhibition and her presentation on June 26, 2015:

Early in their careers, many artists work in jobs that provide a steady income to support themselves and their families. Carrying that responsibility, Charles E. Burchfield designed wallpapers and cretonnes, which are coordinating fabrics, during his tenure at the M. H. Birge & Sons Company in Buffalo, New York from 1921 to 1929. He had been encouraged by his professor Henry Keller to apply for the job of assistant to the head designer, Edward B. Sides, because of his brilliant sense of design. Eventually he became a top designer, earning his name to be printed in the selvage. While constrained by some assignments to work within traditional geometric or scenic patterns, Burchfield still was able to contribute unusual landscape patterns based on his early watercolor paintings or personal interpretation of trees and common wildflowers.

Burchfield’s love for his wife and five children, and his appreciation for humble landscape details, sustained him through what became a love-hate relationship with the idea of working for hire versus painting freely on an unrestricted schedule. In 1925 he wrote: “I must earn my own & my family’s daily bread doing work that is directly opposed to my ideals in art—but were I a really strong character I should struggle thru with a few great things in spite of everything—” In 1927, when Mr. Sides died, Burchfield became the head of the design department, but felt he “was temperamentally unfit for an executive or responsible position. In addition to that, my increased duties made it more and more difficult to devote my spare time to my painting, which I had somehow managed to keep up in spite of my wall-paper work, and family cares….” In February 1929, Edward Wales Root, a collector and educator, arranged a meeting with Burchfield and Frank K. M. Rehn, resulting in the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York becoming his dealer. He resigned his job on July 31st to devote all his time to painting. Despite his initial objections, this eight-year chapter in Burchfield’s life actually helped him transition from an art school graduate into achieving his goal of being an independent artist—and during his Birge years, he produced wallpapers that we can especially appreciate today for their complexity and superb designs.