Burchfield Penney Art Center

10/16/2026

Fall fits, personal style, and Buffalo’s fashion scene: catch the latest episode of Group Chat from BTPM PBS! Tiffany Gaines & Nicole Davis join the Chat to share a sneak peek at Find Your FIT at the Burchfield Penney this Saturday! 🍂

📺 Watch:

Fall is here, but great style is about more than following the late...

10/16/2026

What wonderful weather is this fall weather—I can only describe it as capricious. Weather of the Indian Summer type prevails—smoky days of warm elusive sunshine, spring breezes, fast shedding trees, burning leaves, from which comes the rich spicy smoke that we fairly drink in, bright colors, tangy nights of mottled skies and bright moon.

Charles Burchfield, Journals, October 16, 1913

Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Autumn Leaves at Play, 1950-1959; watercolor on paper, 30 x 40 inches; Private Collection

10/15/2026

Missed Daybreak? Catch the story at 4 pm today on WGRZ Channel 2! Artist Ann PerrySmith joins Kevin O’Neill to talk about “Fifty Years of RALA,” now on view at the Burchfield Penney.

The celebration of the Roycrofters-At-Large Association’s 50th anniversary is just getting started. “Carrying the Craft Forward: The Roycroft Renaissance” opens at the Buffalo History Museum tomorrow, with more to come here at the Burchfield Penney and on the Roycroft Campus in East Aurora in the months ahead.

Stay up to date on all things RALA at roycroftartisans.org.
Big thanks to Kevin, Kenny, and Ann for joining us bright and early this morning!

Roycroft Artisans WGRZ

10/15/2026

Yesterday morning while on my way to school in the rain, I marked that the color of autumn seems to have come all at once – walking under the trees I felt as if the color made sound –

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, October 15, 1915

Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Autumn Morning, Gardenville, New York, 1946; watercolor, gouache, and black crayon or charcoal on off-white wove paper, 20 3/8 x 25 7/8 inches; Detroit Institute of Arts

10/14/2026

Find Your FIT‼️ A Creative Conversation with Sir John & Friends

Oct 17, 2026 5:30pm — 8:00pm
$45 | $35 for Members

Join globally renowned celebrity makeup artist, creative director, and cultural tastemaker Sir John S I R J O H N💫 for a live conversation on fashion, identity, and creative entrepreneurship — presented alongside the exhibition FIT: Buffalo Fashion, Identity, and Transformation, now on view at the Burchfield Penney.

Together they’ll dig into where Buffalo’s creative scene comes from, how fashion and beauty move communities and industries, and what the city’s creative future could look like — followed by audience Q&A.

Sir John is joined by:

Nicole Davis, Founder, Franci by Nicole Davis Jewelry Nicole Davis

Billie Essco, artist, designer, musician, and Co-Founder of CAFE+CZEN Clothing Brand CAFE+CZEN

Tiffany Gaines, Curator of FIT: Buffalo Fashion, Identity, and Transformation Tiffany Gaines

🎟️ Tickets available now shop.burchfieldpenney.org

10/14/2026

(Insert here my ideas on regional art)

(Later [October 21] it no longer seems worthwhile to express my views on such a matter as regional art—

Charles Burchfield, Journals, October 14, 1938

Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Street Scene, 1940-1947; watercolor on paper, 39 x 53 inches; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas Art Association Purchase

10/13/2026

South to the Zoar Valley & beyond on a sketching trip. First to Elma to take bicycle to be repaired, then south thru East Aurora, & on [washing paint-box in clear cold stream under a little bridge. The pleasure it gave me was almost a pang-] down “Center Street”, which took me to east of Springville. From Springville to Zoar Valley. On all side spectacular & theatrical patterns of trees on the hillsides. At the “Lace Gable” House, I parked, and ascended the hill to the north; here the view was so enchanting, and it being noon, I got my lunch and ate it leisurely there. The warm sun beat down, and I was in a drowsy state of contentment.

Simple as my lunch was, I amused [myself] thinking from what remote parts of the earth the “raw materials” of it came. Cashew butter made from nuts imported from India; Oranges from California, Coffee from Brazil, bananas I know not whence; bread from wheat no doubt from our own middle west; olives from Spain; apples from New York State.

A head of cattle with two horses drowsing, and slowly moving towards & then below me. Some of them looked curiously at me for quite some time, then resumed their grazing. There is something hypnotic in their slow rhythmic progression, and regular cropping of the grass, seemingly in unison. The drowsy sunlight & haze added to the dreaminess of the moment.

After lunch, by narrow winding road southward (leaving the Zoar Valley) in search of a subject, albeit I was doing it from a sense of duty & without real impulse. Paused a moment in the narrow Cattaraugus Creek Canyon, then up the steep road, when [an] unveiled wooded hill attracted me. I set up my paraphernalia & started. Rain was brewing in the west, where the sun was only a dim wintry glow beyond a rolling hill. [excerpt]

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, October 13, 1938

Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Cattaraugus Canyon (March Canyon), 1933-57; watercolor, gouache, and charcoal on joined paper, mounted on board, 39 ¾ x 54 inches; DC Moore Gallery, New York

10/12/2026

Spent yesterday morning in Wade Park sketching. A fine cool windy October day. White shattered clouds. The sunny bank of Doan creek is pleasant. Looking sunwards the rapids are refreshingly blinding.

Evening at Travis’s. Joe, John Black, Beda. Discussion of wet + dry, sensuality, + finally religion. A catholic (J. Black) an Episcopalian (Joe) a Christian without denominatial tendencies (Travis) a neutral (myself). An interesting discussion on the divinity of Christ. Such discussions are broadening.

Today - a warm, but inspiriting day. Grey sky at evening.

After work to Library to meet Travis + Roessler. I take the Gist of Nietsche home with me. We walk out. A discussion of success. I argue no­thing in making money.

Travis + I a discussion of the ideal course of an artist, then of God and the worship of him. Later all four on the war situation.

Bob R said his happiness was in his friends.

Charles Burchfield, Journals, October 12, 1914

Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Dismantling a Church, 1922; watercolor, charcoal and graphite on paper, 10 1/2 x 16 3/8 inches; Burchfield Penney Art Center, Gift of Charles Rand Penney, 1994

10/11/2026

Oct. 11, Wed –

About 10 a.m. Louise called and said that Fred had had to be taken to the hospital last night and was not given much hope of recovery by the doctor in charge. Hepatitis was the main factor –

My first thought was that I should go immediately, but she said that he was so very sick and did not recognize her or Irma; so I concluded that inasmuch as we could not come down and wait indefinitely for the end, that we had better wait until later…

A flood of memories and regrets –

A cloudless day – we ate lunch under the rapidly thinning willow tree –

Restless in the studio – unable to settle on anything –

About 6:00 I called Louise – talked to Irma first – she said Fred had brightened up a bit had recognized Tim + both Irma + Louise – The doctor now fears cancer of the liver, but cannot make tests while he is so sick –

We began to feel that we should go down tomorrow, or at least [unintelligible word], if there was any chance of him knowing me. We decided to wait until morning to see how he was.

To the Lake Shore Plaza for a snack + then do some necessary shopping for Bertha –

On the way the sunset glow in the west. A long horizontal cloud-less, rich pink – the v***r trail of a jet plane, of the same color, in huge loops and turns – startling in effect – and in the midst of this color, the first sliver of a new moon – the thinnest I remember – it was of a pale yellow-green white color –

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, October 11, 1961

Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Moonset, June 24, 1916; watercolor on paper, 14 x 10 inches; Image from the Burchfield Penney Art Center archives (detail)

10/10/2026

Charles Cary Rumsey Curator, Tullis Johnson, speaks with Buffalo Rising about his upcoming exhibition, Something Sinister: The Haunted Landscapes of Charles E. Burchfield!

This fall, the Burchfield Penney Art Center prepares for scares as Something Sinister: The Haunted Landscapes of Charles E. Burchfield opens October 29, 2026, and runs through February 28, 2027. Tullis Johnson, Charles Cary Rumsey Curator at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, who curated Something Si...