Harriet and Mortimer Spiller were important patrons of the Charles Burchfield Center almost from its inception on December 9, 1966.
Mortimer Spiller was a Western New York businessman and collector of art and memorabilia with his wife Harriet. The Spillers became important patrons of the Charles Burchfield Center almost from its inception on December 9, 1966. To celebrate the museum’s tenth anniversary, their 1976 gift contained 285 objects, including Burchfield’s youthful drawings of fables, prints, doodles, and significant archival materials such as correspondence, award certificates and medals, and reference sources, such as two catalogues of 1915 sketches which identify the subjects of sketching sessions during the artist’s formative year. Since then, their frequent gifts enriched the Charles E. Burchfield Archives with manuscripts and objects that help define the breadth of Burchfield’s interests, reveal his closeness to his family, and show how his career developed. Our friends Harriet passed away in 2008 and Mort died in 2014.