THE BEST ARTIST NOBODY EVER HEARD OF

The best American artist, that is. If he's not the best he's surely one of the best. I'm talking about Charles Burchfield (1893 - 1967), a little-known regional painter of the American North East. Maybe nobody knows about him because he liked to paint depressing subjects on depressing days. But is "depressing" really the right word?

Look close at these  pictures and you see that they're actually pretty uplifting. You can tell that honest, hardworking people live in these places. You can see that nature puts on a show every day, even in places like this.

Wow! Don't you want to put on rubber boots and splash around in that?

Haw! This house reminds me of the one the young Jean Sheppard lived in, in the movie "Christmas Story."

Is that a kitchen? It looks like a warm and cozy place to have a meal.

Burchfield is amazing! He finds a bleak spot like this (above), and shows you the beauty in it. He makes it seem like the most important place in the world. I'll bet the kids who hung out here carried memories of scenes like this wherever they went, for the rest of their lives.