Willows, watercolor on paper, 17.5 by 13.5 inches (image); 28.5 by 24.5 inches with mat and frame; Monogrammed lower right and dated 1941.

Among the many influences upon Burchfield’s work were the Cleveland modernist painter William Sommer, the apostle of linear design, Arthur Wesley Dow, and his close friend Edward Hopper. Even from his earliest years, Burchfield’s work showed an intense involvement with the natural world around him. In his mature years, his style seems something of an amalgam of decorative principles from the Arts and Crafts movement, the tendency toward abstraction of form in Modernism, and the social realism of the American Scene painters. Principally a watercolorist, Burchfield endowed elements of the natural world with a sentient, even sometimes anthropomorphic, quality. This tendency becomes even more pronounced in his late years, when the elements of his landscapes assume a jagged, threatening, and highly expressive form. Like those of his friend Hopper, Burchfield’s scenes convey a pronounced sense of mystery.

By far the largest collection of Burchfield’s work resides in the Burchfield-Penney Art Center in Buffalo. His work can also be found in most major collections of modern American art, including the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Albright-Knox Gallery, the Corcoran Gallery, and the Cleveland Museum.