The Sphinx and the Milky Way
Artist
Charles Ephraim Burchfield
(American, 1893 - 1967)
Date1946
MediumOpaque and transparent watercolor, chalk, and crayon on wove watercolor paper
DimensionsOverall: 52 1/2 x 44 3/4 in. (133.3 x 113.7 cm)
Framed: 64 1/2 x 57 in. (163.8 x 144.8 cm)
Framed: 64 1/2 x 57 in. (163.8 x 144.8 cm)
ClassificationsDRAWINGS
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Object number48.45
Description On View
Not on viewCollections
CopyrightThe Burchfield Penney Art Center, as a representative of the Charles E. Burchfield Foundation, manages the copyright of all works produced by Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967).
Label TextIn The Sphinx and the Milky Way Charles Burchfield sought to capture the multi-sensory mystery of a midsummer’s night—the fragrance of the lush garden’s oversized pansies, dahlias, and hydrangeas, and the hum of buzzing insects. In Burchfield’s interpretation the scene is a fantastical evocation of a large sphinx or hawkmoth partaking of the nectar of a nicotiana flower below a vast star-swept sky. The painting’s elaborate astronomical patterns were inspired by an overnight boat ride to Detroit that Burchfield and his son took. In the middle of the night father and son stole up to the deck and were mesmerized by the Milky Way above, “seeming so close we could almost reach up and touch it. It was a magnificent revelation to me,” Burchfield wrote.
Mary E. Murray
Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
