Backyards in Winter (Castoff Christmas Tree) (January 1917): Art, History and Details

Backyards in Winter (Castoff Christmas Tree) (January 1917) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Charles Burchfield (American, 1893–1967).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Backyards in Winter (Castoff Christmas Tree)
• Date: January 1917
• Creator attribution: Charles Burchfield (American, 1893–1967)
• Culture: America
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor, gouache, blue and orange crayons, and black wash on wove paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 36.3 x 45.8 cm (14 5/16 x 18 1/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - American 20th Century
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1954.571

A detail from the museum

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

Collection credit

Anonymous gift in memory of Henry G. Keller

Further reading listed by the museum

• Trovato, Joseph S. Charles Burchfield: Catalogue of Paintings in Public and Private Collections. Utica: Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute, 1970.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.