{
"data": {
"id": 130712,
"accession_number": "1953.429",
"share_license_status": "Copyrighted",
"tombstone": "Study No. 1 for: Church Bells Ringing, Rainy Winter Night, 1917. Charles Burchfield (American, 1893\u20131967). Gray/black wash, pen and black ink, and black and color crayons, with graphite and watercolor; sheet: 36.8 x 21.2 cm (14 1/2 x 8 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund, 1953.429. Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation",
"current_location": null,
"title": "Study No. 1 for: Church Bells Ringing, Rainy Winter Night",
"creation_date": "1917",
"creation_date_earliest": 1917,
"creation_date_latest": 1917,
"artists_tags": [
"May Show",
"Cleveland Institute of Art (alumni)",
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "gray/black wash, pen and black ink, and black and color crayons, with graphite and watercolor",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "Drawings",
"collection": "DR - American 20th Century",
"type": "Drawing",
"measurements": "Sheet: 36.8 x 21.2 cm (14 1/2 x 8 3/8 in.)",
"dimensions": {
"sheet": {
"height": 0.368,
"height_inch": 14,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.5,
"width": 0.212,
"width_inch": 8,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.375
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": "Reproduced with permission from the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation",
"inscriptions": [],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 311926,
"title": "The Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield",
"description": "The Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 4, 1953-January 10, 1954).",
"opening_date": "1953-11-04T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 301176,
"title": "Charles Burchfield Retrospective Exhibition",
"description": "Charles Burchfield Retrospective Exhibition. Whitney Museum of American Art (January 11-February 26, 1956); The Baltimore Museum of Art (March 14-April 22, 1956); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (May 9-June 17, 1956); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (July 11-August 19, 1956); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (September 5-October 14, 1956); The Phillips Collection (November 4-December 11, 1956); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (December 28, 1956-February 10, 1957).",
"opening_date": "1956-12-28T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 301184,
"title": "Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition",
"description": "Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959).",
"opening_date": "1958-03-03T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 338569,
"title": "The Nature of Charles Burchfield: A Memorial Exhibition, 1893\u20131967, Paints, Drawings, Prints",
"description": "The Nature of Charles Burchfield: A Memorial Exhibition, 1893\u20131967, Paints, Drawings, Prints. Munson Museum of Art, Utica, NY (organizer) (April 3-June 14, 1970).",
"opening_date": "1970-04-03T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 338564,
"title": "An American Visionary: Watercolors and Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield",
"description": "An American Visionary: Watercolors and Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield. Currier Museum of Art; Berkshire Museum; Boston Athenaeum (March 20-May 16, 1986).",
"opening_date": "1986-03-20T05:00:00"
},
{
"id": 227084,
"title": "Made in U.S.A., l'art am\u00e9ricain, 1908-1943, entre nationalisme et internationalisme [FRAME]",
"description": "Made in U.S.A., l'art am\u00e9ricain, 1908-1943, entre nationalisme et internationalisme [FRAME]. Mus\u00e9e des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, Rennes, France (January 17-March 31, 2002).",
"opening_date": "2001-10-05T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 177916,
"title": "Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age",
"description": "Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 28-July 18, 2004).",
"opening_date": "2004-03-28T00:00:00"
},
{
"id": 313096,
"title": "Charles Burchfield: The Ohio Landscapes, 1915\u20131920",
"description": "Charles Burchfield: The Ohio Landscapes, 1915\u20131920. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 22, 2018-May 5, 2019).",
"opening_date": "2018-12-22T05:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": []
},
"provenance": [
{
"description": "Charles Burchfield [1893-1967], Buffalo, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1917-1953",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": [],
"date": "1953-",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Barely visible, two figures look out the window of the house on the left, standing near a Christmas tree that symbolized Burchfield's favorite holiday.",
"description": "Burchfield drastically altered the church spire in this study for his 1917 watercolor Church Bells Ringing, Rainy Winter Night. Here, the tower takes on a wider, more open appearance than in the final drawing. The artist wrote in his private journal for December 1917 that he \u201cwandered between the Baptist and Presbyterian church to hear the bells ring. I ran back to one too late\u2014the other I arrived at in time to hear the last ponderous beats\u2014the whole tower seemed to vibrate with a dull roar afterwards, dying slowly with a growl.\u201d",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60780804"
],
"internet_archive": []
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "De Grazia, Diana. \"The Evolution of a Collection: Drawings in Cleveland.\" Master Drawings 38, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 249-260.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 258; Reproduced: p. 257",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Prasse, Leona E. \"An Exhibition of the Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield.\" Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art (November 1953): 203.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 203",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Prasse, Leona E. The Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield. Exh. Cat. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art,1953.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: no. 30; Reproduced: plate I",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Townsend, J. Benjamin. An American Visionary: Watercolors and Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield. Exh. Cat. Boston: Athen\u00e6um, 1986.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: no. 50",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Trovato, Joseph S. The Nature of Charles Burchfield: A Memorial Exhibition, 1893\u20131967, Paints, Drawings, Prints. Exh. Cat. Utica, NY: Museum of Art, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, 1970.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: no. 309",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 613",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n114"
},
{
"citation": "Chassey, E\u0301ric de. Made in USA l'art ame\u0301ricain, 1908-1947 : [exposition] Bordeaux, muse\u0301e des Beaux-Arts, 10 octobre-31 de\u0301cembre 2001, Rennes, muse\u0301e des Beaux-Arts, 18 janvier-31 mars 2002, Montpellier, muse\u0301e Fabre, 12 avril-23 juin 2001 [i.e. 2002]. Paris: Re\u0301union des muse\u0301es nationaux, 2001.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 165",
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "Robinson, William H., Kathleen McKeever, \"And All That Jazz\", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 44 no. 05, May 2004",
"page_number": "Mentioned & reproduced: 4-5",
"url": "https://archive.org/details/CMAMM2004-05/page/n3/"
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1953.429",
"images": {},
"alternate_images": [],
"creditline": "Norman O. Stone and Ella A. Stone Memorial Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": null,
"athena_id": 130712,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3989,
"description": "Charles Burchfield (American, 1893\u20131967)",
"extent": null,
"qualifier": null,
"role": "artist",
"biography": "Charles Burchfield was among the most original and poetic painters of the Cleveland modernist movement. Born in Ashtabula, he moved to Salem, Ohio, following the death of his father in 1898. After graduating from high school, he attended Cleveland School of Art, studying with William Eastman, Frederick Gottwald, Henry Keller, and Frank Wilcox. In 1914 Burchfield began attending Kokoon Klub exhibitions, and in spring 1915 he went to Brandywine to meet William Sommer. Around this time Burchfild began experimenting with the brilliant colors and simplified forms of the Berlin Heights painters. He painted his first mature works in 1915, and grad ed from the Cleveland School of Art with a degree in illustration the following spring. That summer the Cleveland School of Art sponsored his first solo exhibition, and in the fall, after attending the National Academy of Design in New York for one month, he returned to Salem. In February 1917 the Cleveland School of Art mounted his second solo exhibition. Burchfield was inducted into the army that summer. After his return in 1919 he exhibited with other Cleveland modernists at the Play House, Laukhuff\u2019 s Book store, and other Cleveland venues. In 1921 he went on an extended sketching trip through eastern Ohio with Keller, Wilcox, and Paul Travis, exhibiting these recent paintings at the Cleveland School of Art and in the May Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Later that year he moved to Buffalo to work as a wallpaper designer, a position he retained until he resigned in 1929 to become a full-time painter. Over the next 30 years he exhibited extensively at museums and galleries across the country. Solo exhibitions of his paintings were held at New York\u2019s Museum of Modern Art (1930), Pittsburgh\u2019 s Carnegie Institute of Art (1935, 1938, 1946), and Buffalo\u2019 s Albright-Knox Art Gallery (1944, 1955, 1963, 1967). In 1953 New York\u2019s Whitney Museum of American Art organized a major exhibition that traveled to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Burchfield died in West Seneca, New York.
\"Transformations in Cleveland Art\" (CMA, 1996), p. 224",
"name_in_original_language": null,
"birth_year": "1893",
"death_year": "1967",
"use_in_caption": true,
"include_extent": false,
"weight": 1
}
],
"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1953-11-05T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1917,
"date_added_to_oa": null,
"date_text": "1917",
"collapse_artists": false,
"on_loan": false,
"recently_acquired": false,
"record_type": "object",
"conservation_statement": null,
"has_conservation_images": false,
"cover_accession_number": null,
"is_nazi_era_provenance": false,
"impression": null,
"alternate_titles": [],
"is_highlight": false,
"updated_at": "2026-05-01 06:49:14.054000"
}
}