Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

Burchfield painted this Dead Sunflower along the Goshen—Two Mile Road in Salem, Ohio. It was one of thirteen sunflower subjects he completed in 1916. He admitted that sunflowers were at times his favorite flower (and, at other times, he claimed the skunk-cabbage or hepatica). If the glory of the sunflower in high summer, tall and shining in a brilliant golden field, is a celebration of vitality, Burchfield found poignancy in the September flower, its head heavy with seed bowing to harvest season.