Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

In planning his Cleveland School of Art mural, Burchfield “conceived an opera or music drama… The Indian myth ‘Hiawatha’ is to be the basis.” Inspired by Longfellow’s poem, he planned to portray “the great tragedy of the Indian race being exterminated by the European” symbolized with the “tragedy of nature being lost and destroyed by commercialism.”