Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00000296Church Bells Ringing, Rainy Winter Night
About the Artwork
Burchfield considered this drawing among the greatest accomplishments of his “golden year.” This period followed a time of self-doubt and uncertainty: after graduating from the Cleveland School of Art, Burchfield enrolled in the National Academy of Design in New York City, but dropped out after one day, returning to Salem to work an office job. He painted inexhaustibly during his breaks and at night, depicting Salem and its environs in an increasingly abstract style. Church Bells Ringing, Rainy Winter Night shows the spire of Salem’s Baptist church rising up between two houses. Burchfield hoped to express his powerful childhood fear of the bell’s ominous ring—which he described as “a dull roar . . . dying slowly & with a growl.” Hearing it on stormy winter nights, he huddled in his bed and calmed himself by thinking of Christmas, a practice suggested by the tree visible through a window in the drawing. Burchfield carefully refined the composition throughout the sketches seen in this gallery. The drawing’s mood is conveyed through gray tones and the buildings’ hulking forms. Burchfield also created a complex language of symbols entitled “Conventions for Abstract Thoughts,” that recurred throughout his work and represented universal emotions. The hooked forms surrounding the tower stood for “Fear,” for example, and the shapes of the houses’ doors and windows symbolize “Morbidness” and “Evil.” Developed fully in this drawing, these symbols dominated Burchfield’s work during the remaining several years he spent in Ohio.
Inscriptions
signed, at lower right, in graphite: Chas E Burchfield / Dec. 1917
Provenance
?-1949: Louise M. Dunn, Cleveland, OH, gift to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 1949-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Eighth Exhibition of Watercolors and Pastels. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 6-December 7, 1930). New Accessions, USA, 1950. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center (July 2-September 4, 1950). The Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 4, 1953-January 10, 1954). 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). The Decade of the Armory Show. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 27-April 14, 1963). The Decade of the Armory Show: New Directions in American Art, 1910-1920. Whitney Museum of American Art (February 27-April 14, 1963); Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (June 1-July 14, 1963); The Cleveland Museum of Art (August 6-September 15, 1963); Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Museum of American Art (September 30-October 30, 1963); The Art Institute of Chicago (November 15-December 29, 1963); Buffalo AKG Art Museum (January 20-February 23, 1964). The New Tradition: Modern Americans Before 1940. Corcoran Gallery of Art (April 26-June 3, 1963). The New Tradition: Modern Americans before 1940. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (organizer) (April 26-June 3, 1963). Paintings by Charles Burchfield. Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, MO (organizer) (September 15-October 20, 1963). Inaugural Exhibition. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (organizer) (September 15-October 20, 1963). 200 Years of American Painting. Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO (organizer) (co-organizer) (April 1-May 31, 1964). Past and Present. Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (April 14-September 15, 1966). Pageant of Ohio Painters. The Butler Institute of American Art (April 3-30, 1967). Exhibition of Ohio Painters. The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH (organizer) (April 4-30, 1967). Eight American Masters of Watercolor: Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Maurice B. Prendergast, John Marin, Arthur G. Dove, Charles Demuth, Charles E. Burchfield, Andrew Wyeth. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (April 23-June 16, 1968); Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (June 28-August 18, 1968); Seattle Art Museum (September 5-October 13, 1968). The Nature of Charles Burchfield: A Memorial Exhibition, 1893–1967, Paints, Drawings, Prints. Munson Museum of Art, Utica, NY (organizer) (April 3-June 14, 1970). Expo '74 International Exposition on the Environment: Our Land, Our Sky, Our Water. World's Fair, Spokane, WA (organizer) (May 4-November 3, 1974). The Natural Paradise: Painting in America 1800 - 1950. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (organizer) (September 29-November 30, 1976). The Cleveland Institute of Art: 100 Years. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 22, 1982-January 30, 1983). America Draws. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 28, 1984-March 17, 1985). Nocturnal Impressions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 20-May 12, 1985). An American Visionary: Watercolors and Drawings of Charles E. Burchfield. Currier Museum of Art; Berkshire Museum; Boston Athenaeum (March 20-May 16, 1986). The Early Works of Charles E. Burchfield 1915-1921. Columbus Museum of Art (December 13, 1987-February 7, 1988); Laguna Art Museum (March 5, 1998-April 24, 1988); Burchfield Penney Art Center (May 14-July 3, 1998). Charles E. Burchfield: The Sacred Woods. The Drawing Center (June 12-July 30, 1993); Minnesota Museum of American Art (September 10-November 14, 1993); Burchfield Penney Art Center (December 11, 1993-February 6, 1994); Hunter Museum of American Art (April 3-May 22, 1994). Transformations in Cleveland Art, 1796-1946. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 19-July 21, 1996). The Paintings of Charles Burchfield: North by Midwest. Columbus Museum of Art (March 25-May 19, 1997); Burchfield Penney Art Center (June 15-August 17, 1997); National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC (September 1, 1997-January 25, 1998). Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 28-July 18, 2004). Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (June 23-October 17, 2010). Charles Burchfield: The Ohio Landscapes, 1915–1920. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 22, 2018-May 5, 2019). Charles E. Burchfield: A Lifetime of Themes. Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, NY (organizer) (December 10, 2021-May 1, 2022) https://burchfieldpenney.org/exhibitions/exhibition:11-13-2020-02-28-2021-charles-e-burchfield-a-lifetime-of-themes/.
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 7, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Charles Burchfield (American, 1893–1967)
- Date
- December 1917
- Medium
- watercolor and gouache over graphite on wove paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 77.2 x 50 cm (30 3/8 x 19 11/16 in.); Secondary Support: 77.5 x 50 cm (30 1/2 x 19 11/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. Louise M. Dunn in memory of Henry G. Keller
- Accession no.
- 1949.544
More by Charles Burchfield in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00000296
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