Spring Rain in the Woods

Provenance

The artist
Mr. and Mrs. Alan D. Oppenheimer, Sr., Buffalo, New York, acquired from above, 1954
Mr. and Mrs. Alan D. Oppenheimer, Jr., Amherst, New York, from above
John Sacret Young (1946–2021), Los Angeles, California, acquired from above, 2003
By descent from above
Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, New York, November 19, 2024, lot 548, from above

Exhibited

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1951
Upton Hall Gallery, State University College, Buffalo, New York, April 24–May 29, 1963
Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State, New York, December 7, 1986–Jan 25, 1987
Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State, New York, December 10, 2021–May 1, 2022
Burchfield Penney Art Center at SUNY Buffalo State, New York, June 9–October 1, 2023

Literature

Joseph S. Trovato, Charles Burchfield: Catalogue of Paintings in Public and Private Collections (Utica: Munson-
Williams-Proctor Institute), 1970, 238, no. 1073.
J. Benjamin Townsend, Charles Burchfield’s Journals: The Poetry of Place (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1993), 524.

Related Works

December Storm, watercolor on joined paper mounted on board, 40½ x 56 inches; Burchfield Penney Art
Center at SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo, New York
Cold September Rain, 1957, watercolor on paper mounted on board, 29 15/16 x 39 ¾ inches, Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York, New York

Note

This painting is a rare example of Charles Burchfield’s improvisational work: on April 4, 1950,
Burchfield ventured into the “Big Woods” east of Gowanda, New York, where the rapidly changing
weather altered his original artistic plans. According to his journal, he began improvising based on the
scene before him. Nancy Weekly, the renowned Burchfield scholar and curator from the State University
of New York, noted that the jagged branches in the painting symbolize lightning, while the yellow
openings suggest the “shining sunlight” that would emerge as the storm subsided.