Full Name: Burchfield, Louise Howell
Other Names:
- Louise Burchfield
Gender: female
Date Born: 9 August 1898
Date Died: 19 July 1982
Home Country/ies: United States
Subject Area(s): miniature painting
Career(s): art historians and curators
Institution(s): Cleveland Museum of Art
Overview
American art curator, collector; specialist in portrait miniatures. Burchfield was the daughter of artist William Charles Burchfield (1869-1898) and Alice Murphy (Burchfield) (1862-1933). She was the third child of five siblings. Her brother was the painter Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967). Burchfield attended Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University). In 1924, she joined the Cleveland Museum of Art as an assistant in the registration department, and later the associate curator of painting. She directed the May Show, the Museum’s annual show, for many years and published articles on The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Her writing on The Edward B. Greene Collection of Portrait Miniatures was published in 1951. With the help of William M. Milliken, she compiled the catalogue of the Green Collection, which was also released in 1951. The next year, she became the first member of the museum to receive a Guggenheim fellowship for her work on portrait miniatures. She went on a trip to Europe and returned to the US in 1952. Burchfield retired from the museum in 1954.
Burchfield devoted herself to the study of miniatures from various origins, which proved beneficial in examining Edward B. Greene’s extensive collection (Milliken, preface). Besides, she also reviewed works by a wide range of artists, including Winslow Homer, Henri Matisse, Henry G. Keller, De Hooch, David Teniers the Younger and her brother Charles Burchfield.
Selected Bibliography
- “A Water Color by Charles Burchfield.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 25, no. 4, (1938): 66–71.
- “Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings by Charles Burchfield.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 32, no. 1, (1945): 8–9.
- “Paintings by Winslow Homer.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 9, (1946): 165–71.
- “The Edward B. Greene Collection of Portrait Miniatures.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 38, no. 6, (1951): 128–29.
- and Milliken, William M., Harry B. Wehle, preface. Portrait Miniatures: The Edward B. Greene Collection. Cleveland, 1951.
- Burchfield, Louise H. “Exhibition of Work by Henri Matisse.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 39, no. 2, (1952): 28–29.
Sources
- American Women: the Official Who’s Who among the Women of the Nation. Los Angeles: American Publications, 1939, p.128.
- Connoisseurs of the World: Being an International Biographical Dictionary of Connoisseurs, Collectors, and Patrons of Art. London: Mitre Press, 1943, p.17-18.
- Milliken, William M. “Retirement of Miss Louise H. Burchfield.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 41, no. 8 ,1954, pp. 193.
- “Louise H. Burchfield – John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation….” Accessed October 18, 2024. https://www.gf.org/fellows/louise-h-burchfield/.
- “Louise H Burchfield (1888–1982) FamilySearch.” FamilySearch. Accessed October 18, 2024. https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/M7L1-S4W/louise-h-burchfield-1888-1982
- “Charles Burchfield.” Sothebys.com. Accessed November 1, 2024. https://www.sothebys.com/en/artists/charles-burchfield..
Archives
Burchfield, Louise paper archive, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives
Contributors: Yuhuan Zhang