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The sitter is shown in a contemplative mood in dark surroundings, with a light source coming from a window at the left. The light strikes the top of his balding head. He is dressed in a three-piece suit, white shirt, and dark tie, and wears wire glasses and a small insignia on his left breast. He sits in a slightly slouched position with his head down and left hand extended on a sofa with a floral pattern. A pillow with the same design projects from behind his back.
Burchfield is known for his views of small-town America and for his visionary watercolors of nature, such as Reynolda House Museum of American Art’s, The Woodpecker, 1955–1963. Early in his career, he invented shorthand graphic symbols to represent certain moods, often of a depressing sort. Fear was a recurring theme in his work, reflecting his own emotional state: he worried over comments by critics, rejection, and financial matters. Often melancholy, he would write his dealer about the “blues,” being “sunk,” and wondering if he would ever paint again. [2]
This photograph was shot in September 1941, in New York, far from the artist’s home near Buffalo, so Newman was unable to personalize the image with a setting or artifacts directly related to Burchfield. Instead, Newman dwelt on Burchfield’s shyness and his tendency toward melancholy.
Notes:
[1] Newman, quoted in Arnold Newman and Arthur Goldsmith, “A Popular Photography Tape Interview: Arnold Newman on Portraiture, Popular Photography40, no. 5 (May 1957), 125–126, quoted in Beaumont Newhall and Robert Sobieszek, The Portraits and Other Photographs of Arnold Newman (Boston: David R. Godine Publisher, 1974), viii.
[2] Burchfield to Frank Rehn, July 3, 1945, quoted in John I. H. Baur, The Inlander: Life and Work of Charles Burchfield, 1893–1967 (East Brunswick, NJ: Associated University Presses, Inc., and Cornwall Books, 1982), 241.
ProvenanceFrom 1983
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, purchased from Arnold Newman Studios, Inc., New York on January 21, 1983. [1]
Notes:
[1] Invoice, object file.
Exhibition History
DepartmentAmerican Art
Charles Burchfield
Artist
Arnold Newman
(1918 - 2006)
Subject
Charles Ephraim Burchfield
(1893 - 1967)
Date1941
Mediumgelatin silver print
DimensionsFrame: 17 1/4 x 14 1/4 in. (43.8 x 36.2 cm)
Image: 9 1/4 x 7 1/4 in. (23.5 x 18.4 cm)
Signed© Arnold Newman
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
CopyrightDue to rights restrictions this image can not be enlarged or viewed at full screen.
Object number1983.2.4
DescriptionWhile much is made of Arnold Newman’s “environmental portraits”—placing sitters in the context of their occupations, with symbols associated with them—what any portraitist is really after is the inner personality of his subject. But Newman recognized the challenge: “We can only show, as best we can, what the outer man reveals; the inner man is seldom revealed to anyone, sometimes not even to the man himself. We have to interpret. … I think one of the greatest tests of the portrait photographer is his intuitiveness, his ability to judge a person, his ability to get along with all kinds of people, from a street-car conductor to a prime minister of a world power, his ability to have sympathy for each man and to understand the man he is photographing, to show tact and understanding of the problem the man obviously faces before the camera.” [1] In his likeness of painter Charles Burchfield (1893–1967), Newman displayed both sympathy and utter tact. The sitter is shown in a contemplative mood in dark surroundings, with a light source coming from a window at the left. The light strikes the top of his balding head. He is dressed in a three-piece suit, white shirt, and dark tie, and wears wire glasses and a small insignia on his left breast. He sits in a slightly slouched position with his head down and left hand extended on a sofa with a floral pattern. A pillow with the same design projects from behind his back.
Burchfield is known for his views of small-town America and for his visionary watercolors of nature, such as Reynolda House Museum of American Art’s, The Woodpecker, 1955–1963. Early in his career, he invented shorthand graphic symbols to represent certain moods, often of a depressing sort. Fear was a recurring theme in his work, reflecting his own emotional state: he worried over comments by critics, rejection, and financial matters. Often melancholy, he would write his dealer about the “blues,” being “sunk,” and wondering if he would ever paint again. [2]
This photograph was shot in September 1941, in New York, far from the artist’s home near Buffalo, so Newman was unable to personalize the image with a setting or artifacts directly related to Burchfield. Instead, Newman dwelt on Burchfield’s shyness and his tendency toward melancholy.
Notes:
[1] Newman, quoted in Arnold Newman and Arthur Goldsmith, “A Popular Photography Tape Interview: Arnold Newman on Portraiture, Popular Photography40, no. 5 (May 1957), 125–126, quoted in Beaumont Newhall and Robert Sobieszek, The Portraits and Other Photographs of Arnold Newman (Boston: David R. Godine Publisher, 1974), viii.
[2] Burchfield to Frank Rehn, July 3, 1945, quoted in John I. H. Baur, The Inlander: Life and Work of Charles Burchfield, 1893–1967 (East Brunswick, NJ: Associated University Presses, Inc., and Cornwall Books, 1982), 241.
ProvenanceFrom 1983
Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC, purchased from Arnold Newman Studios, Inc., New York on January 21, 1983. [1]
Notes:
[1] Invoice, object file.
Exhibition History
Status
Not on view