Artwork Page for Backyards in Winter (Castoff Christmas Tree)

Details / Information for Backyards in Winter (Castoff Christmas Tree)

Backyards in Winter (Castoff Christmas Tree)

January 1917

Charles Burchfield

(American, 1893–1967)
Culture
America
Medium
watercolor, gouache, blue and orange crayons, and black wash on wove paper
Measurements
Sheet: 36.3 x 45.8 cm (14 5/16 x 18 1/16 in.)
Credit Line
Anonymous gift in memory of Henry G. Keller 1954.571
Catalogue raisonné
Straus; 281; Trovato 245
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print
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Did You Know?

Christmas trees recurred throughout Burchfield's work around this time.

Description

In this drawing, the gray and brown tones of a row of houses are interrupted by the bright green and yellow of a discarded Christmas tree. The work was created in the same year as Church Bells Ringing, where a Christmas tree visible through a window was meant to contrast the work’s foreboding mood. This earlier image similarly suggests Burchfield’s passion for his favorite holiday, which he saw as a symbol of goodness.
A horizontally oriented watercolor and gouache painting on tan paper depicts a snowy backyard. In the lower center, a fallen orange and green evergreen tree lies horizontally. Blue crayon strokes define tracks across the snow-covered ground. Thick black lines form a gnarled, leafless tree on the left and dark structures across the midground. In the background, simplified houses sit beneath spindly, yellow-toned bare trees under a pale, hazy sky.

Backyards in Winter (Castoff Christmas Tree)

January 1917

Charles Burchfield

(American, 1893–1967)
America

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