Hemlock and Trilliums

Details

CHARLES EPHRAIM BURCHFIELD (1893-1967)
Hemlock and Trilliums
signed with initials in monogram 'CEB' (lower left)
watercolor and gouache on paper
image, 22 x 16 in. (55.9 x 40.6 cm.);
sheet, 27 ¼ x 21 ¾ in. (69.2 x 55.2 cm.)
Executed in 1950.

Provenance

The artist.
Bertha Kenreich Burchfield, New York, wife of the above.
DC Moore Gallery, New York.

Literature

J.S. Trovato, Charles Burchfield Catalogue of Paintings in Public and Private Collections, Utica, New York, 1970, p. 238, no. 1067.

Further details

We would like to thank Nancy Weekly, Burchfield Scholar at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, for her assistance with cataloguing this lot.

Brought to you by

Quincie Dixon Associate Specialist, Head of Sale

qdixon@christies.com +1 212 636 2141

Lot Essay

According to Burchfield Scholar Nancy Weekly, "On occasion, Burchfield created a smaller version of a painting, especially if he and/or his wife Bertha were fond of the large version and reluctant or ambivalent about releasing it for sale. Since Bertha owned Hemlock and Trilliums, it’s clear that Charles wanted her to have a personal 'memento' of the original she admired. In many ways, her version is livelier in expressing their shared joy with the onset of spring, which they often observed by going to woods to see trilliums." (unpublished letter, 2026) The present work relates to the artist's 1948 watercolor entitled Red Trilliums and Hemlock (private collection).

More from Modern American Art

View All