Charles Burchfield Day: In the Footsteps of Charles Burchfield

Art in the forest! We’ll take a walk in Charles Burchfield’s “Big Woods” for en plein air painting/sketching guided by local artist Thomas Annear and accompanied by Nancy Weekly, Burchfield Scholar at the Burchfield Penney Art Center and author of “Charles E. Burchfield: The Sacred Woods.” Bring your own art materials of choice, sketchpad or travel easel, and portable chair if desired. We’ll be creating art independently (not a classroom outing).

Pre-registration required. Please register below.
Registered attendees meet at the Holcomb Pond trailhead on Vail Road in Collins.

OUTING LEVEL: Short and easy walk over mostly level terrain on a well-established trail. Footwear for a trail walk and long pants recommended. Please bring a sack lunch, water, and snacks, an outdoor seat if desired, and anything that makes you comfortable in the outdoors – hat, sunscreen, insect repellent, etc.

Burchfield discovered Zoar Valley in the 1920’s shortly after moving to Buffalo. He fondly named the forests in and around the Gowanda canyons “the Big Woods.” A pantheist at heart, Burchfield regarded forests as sacred spaces, and Zoar certainly held this draw for him. Burchfield returned to the forests of Zoar over more than 40 years to paint expressions of his relationship with nature in what he described as his “forest interior” works:  “Flame of Spring” (1948), “Light Coming into a Woods” (1954), “Arctic Owl and Winter Moon” (1960), “Eye of God in a Woods” (1949; reworked in1962 as “Presence of God in a Woods”), “Clatter of Crows in Spring Woods” (1949), “Fires of Spring in Big Woods” (1951), and “Hemlock in November” (1947-1966) (the last painting Burchfield worked on), among Burchfield’s many other works in and around Zoar Valley. Burchfield also expressed Zoar’s beauty in viewscapes: “March Sunlight” (1926-1934), “The Cliff” (1928), “March Day at Gowanda” (1926-1933), and “Lavender and Old Lace” (1939-1947), among others.

NOT TO BE MISSED!  Three of Burchfield’s paintings in Zoar Valley are currently on display as part of the “Poetic Passages: Burchfield from the Munson Museum of Art” exhibit at the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY, through July 27, 2025: “Flame of Spring” (1948), an inspired forest interior painted in the Big Woods, “Lace Gables” (1935), an ornate Gothic farmhouse that enchanted Burchfield so much he returned to paint it several times, and “Village in the Swamps” (1930), a late evening view looking down over the Village of Gowanda as Burchfield emerged on a ridge from a day of painting in the Big Woods, described by Burchfield as his favorite painting completed that year. “Poetic Passages” is a rare opportunity to see the entire Burchfield collection of the Munson Museum of Art, along with select Burchfield Penney collection sketches. The exhibit is, an exuberant celebration of Burchfield’s lifetime of art across each of his style periods, including one of his masterpieces, “The Sphinx and the Milky Way” (1946).

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Thomas Annear. Originally from Alexandria, Virginia, Tom Annear lived and worked as an artist in a variety of places before moving to Fredonia, New York in June 2000. Since graduating with a BFA in painting from Rutgers University in 1995, his work shifted from political and abstract pieces to paintings that focus on contemporary uses of our environment and a strong sense of place.

Over the past 25 years, Tom has been creating a series of plein air paintings, “Landscape of Change,” that celebrate the beauty and history of local agricultural communities. Through these works, he has sought to capture the unique geography, weather patterns, and natural resources of Western New York. Increasingly, issues such as conservation, local food networks, and sustainability have become central to his work.

For more information and to explore Tom Annear’s many painting journeys, please visit www.ThomasAnnear.com.