“Science and Art through ‘Burchfield Botanicals’”will be the topic of a Science Cafe to be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23 at the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, 2655 South Park Ave., Buffalo.
Tullis Johnson, curator and manager of Archives at the Burchfield Penney Art Center, will give a presentation intersecting science and art through the works of Charles E. Burchfield.
The event includes light refreshments, beer and wine. A mini-tour of the Botanical Gardens follows the presentation.
The cost is $22 for Botanical Gardens members and $25 for non-members. Pre-registration is required. Register online or call 716-827-1584, ext. 291.
The Science Cafe coincides with the Burchfield Botanicals exhibition taking place now in the Anthony J. Sisti and John R. Oishei Foundation Galleries in the Burchfield Penney Art Center, SUNY Buffalo State, 1300 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo.
Burchfield was an artist known for his passionate watercolors of nature scenes and townscapes. The largest collection of his paintings, archives and journals are in the collection of the Burchfield Penney Art Center.
Between 1908 and 1911, Burchfield created nearly 500 botanical sketches that show the different wildflowers and plants he found in the forests and fields around his childhood home in Salem, Ohio. Using books from the local library, Burchfield identified and documented these plants along with the location where he found them. These sketches, which to a large extent predate the artist’s journals, are an important document of Burchfield’s early fascination with the natural world.
Burchfield Botanicals is an exhibition of Burchfield’s botanical sketches and paintings paired with amazing life-like wildflower reproductions from the Buffalo Museum of Science created by Paul and George Marchand.
Paul and George Marchand created the Hall of Plant Life at the science museum in 1936. Paul Marchand, well known throughout the world for his meticulous work, created scientifically accurate and artistically superb casts of flowers and mushrooms as well as dioramas for the museum throughout his career.
The exhibition is organized in collaboration with Garden Walk Buffalo, the Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, The Buffalo Museum of Science and the National Garden Festival.