Charles E. Burchfield

A link between G. Peter Jemison (born 1945, Seneca Nation, Heron Clan) and Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967) was forged in 1964. Fortuitously, when Jemison was a student at Buffalo State College, he met Burchfield who came to campus to critique a painting class. After that impressionable encounter, Jemison continued his studies at the University of Siena in Italy and “decided to write a short letter to Charles Burchfield.” Burchfield replied, but Peter did not see the letter that his mother kept for him until he returned to the U.S. In the following excerpt, Jemison shared how they observed the seasonal weather, which was one of Burchfield’s lifelong concerns:

I wrote about the fall weather I experienced that was very like Western New York changing leaves and rain. …To my surprise, he responded to my letter but it didn’t reach me until I was back in Buffalo. …What Burchfield said was because Siena was roughly at the same latitude as Buffalo it made sense that Siena’s Fall was similar. Winter was, in 1964, very rainy in Tuscany “sempre pioggia.” Anyway, that’s my memory of Charles Burchfield, an artist I have great admiration for. He was genius in my estimation.