Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, March 4, 1966

Letter from Theodore Noehren who, with Maddie, is spending six months in Finland as an exchange professor on a Fulbright Grant. He said Finland was all they had hoped for. He was all “steamed up” on the idea of a show of my work in Finland. He had already talked about it with somebody connected with the university there. While I have never aspired to be a world artist, I have nevertheless thought I would like to have my work shown in the Scandinavian countries. However, there are so many technical problems—the fact of three major shows in the past 14 mo.’s, the undesirability of asking owners to lend so often, the problems of sending works to a foreign country, etc. I will have to say a kind but firm “No”— difficult, because the Noehrens are such enthusiastic warm-hearted friends of us as persons, and great admirers of my work. Theodore has a missionary zeal in respect to the latter, which touches me very deeply.