Promotional Items

Since 2007, the website, in conjunction with the Buckland Historical Society, has produced a yearly calendar to benefit the Historical Society. Usually available in November of the current year, it can be purchased locally or through the website.

The Friends Of Woodward is a group of RSW "appreciators" whose mission is to preserve, promote, and perpetuate his artistic legacy. The group typically meets the 3^rd Thursday of every month and those interested in joining, please do not hestitated to contact them through the link below. ALL ARE WELCOMED...

The organization is a qualifiied 501(c)3 status organization. This means that donations to the organization are tax deductible should you wish to make a contributuion.

Recent Website Updates

For the longest time there was a great deal of confusion regarding how many "Oyster House" paintings there are. We believe we have finally straigthened out the problem after comparing our exhibition list to RSW's dairy comments and newspaper articles we have sorted much of it out and an impending Scapbook page is coming... (continued in the next entry)

... The Boston theme gallery now reflects what we believe are the actually paintings painted from his stay in 1930 for the celebration of Boston's 300th birthday. Given the revisions to Boston Romance: The Oyster House and In Old Boston, Oil, we have also revised the original chalk drawing RSW made. He never names the drawing in his diary but we have settled on The Oyster House, Chalk for the time being.

You learn something new everyday... We have always wondered why RSW would vary his spelling of the word grey/gray. For a time we thought his use of "gray" was a reference to color and that "grey" was more a mood. Well the discovery of this chalk drawing might change that theory or at the least put a kink in it.

Auctioned by the Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, Thomaston, ME, on November 11, 2018. We learned that not only did we have the name wrong but the name we had this painting listed under is believed to be a previously unknown chalk drawing with a slightly varied name, Gray Heights!

On November 11, 2018, the painting Grey Heights was auctioned by the Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, Thomaston, ME, and sold for a hammer price of $8,500. Visit our Auction Page for more...

This previously unknonw chalk was brought to our attention by its current owner. It is of a solitary farm from a distant field with a backdrop of rolling hills and a big sky above. A closer look, which we provide, shows a woman leading a couple horse while laundry hangs to dry on the clothes line. A truly unique piece!

This is embarassing to admit but for the longest time we took this bookplate to be for a Mr. Meredyth and a Mrs. Whitehouse when in reality this is the bookplate for prominant Chicago architect Francis Meredyth Whitehouse and his wife Mary Armour. The bookplate was for their Manchester by the Sea (MA) estate Crowhurst. We include new information and pictures!

This wonderful unsigned and unnamed 36 x 42 painting, we believe, depicts a farmer leading his oxen pulling a buckboard carraige to collect sap late in the season, sometime around early spring. From its brush style, we believe it was painted sometime after 1935. It features a wide spreading maple, on a knoll, with 3 red buckets attached.

In what appears to be painted in his early impressionistic impasto style, this piece illustrates an almost playful mirroring of clouds above with an orchard of apple trees in bloom below. It is interesting to consider if this really occurred and it inspired RSW to capture it or did he take some dramatic license and intentionally painted the clouds in a matching pattern?

For a number of years now we have been trying to gather any information we can regarding the identity of Mrs. Herring. We have learned that more often than not, woman from prominant families often assumed their husband's name but kept thier own sans today's custom of using a hyphen. Eugenia Beetle is of the whaling industry's New Bedford Beetles. Visit the page for more...!

In a rarity for chalk drawings we have had a high quality black and white picture of this piece for many years. Now we finally have a color picture sent to us by its current owner. It is of the unfinished silo, with the make-shift scaffolding that looks to be fragile at best, RSW painted several times from varying angles.

After many years in California having once been owned by close friend, actress Beluah Bondi and her estate, this beautiful autumn painting has come home to New England! Recently cleaned and restored at the Williamstown (MA) Art Conservation Center and on exhibit until Oct. 31st at the PVMA... we may have the pictures but they do not compare to seeing it in person. GO SEE IT!

Also recently cleaned and restored is this early composite painting of Clark Brook frozen in winter heading towards the Deerfiled River. Besides it being a rare composite painting, it also shows the subtle feature of a setting moon in the west. Also on exhibit until Oct. 31st at the PVMA... we may have the pictures but they do not compare to seeing it in person. GO SEE IT!

Added to the complete works list is this previously unknonw painting cited by Mrs. Helen Patch in her letters to the Deerfield Academy's American Studies Group in June of 1970. We do not know if she got the name correct because there is already a 1921 painting by the same name but we will keep it in the catalogue until we learn otherwise.

Previously unknown to us this painting comes to us from its current owner. It is one of those quintessential New England scenes that fits into multiple catagories... roadside, tree, autumn, rock walls and ledge, a fence, a wood pile, with just a glimpse into a distant field and hills beyond. A classic New England landscape, thus the name ascribed to it by us.

While revising the image for Down an August Road it was determined that this painting could not have been the painting later cut down and renamed Early Autumn. THEY ARE DIFFERENT SEASONS! Upon further review, examining diary comments and exhbition records we not only determined that the "cut-down" painting is In Early Autumn but that there were two previously unknown chalk drawings:
Early Autumn, Chalk and
The Road Home
related to The Home Road

This painting came up for auction and sold this July. We first learned of this painting 20 years ago when it went up for auction in New Hampshire but have never seen it in person until now. The only painting in RSW's catalog of its size, at nearly hundred years old it is in excellent condition!

This wonderful tribute to RSW holds many interesting facts and tidbits, however, what is most impressive are the 6 paintings featured. Five of the paintings are the ONLY good quality images we have! What's more is to this day we do not know their whereabouts. It is remarkable for one article to contain so much value.

From the article in October, 1946, American Artist Magazine we captured 5 new images of the paintings featured.Tthe paintings are the ONLY good quality images we have! What's more is to this day we do not know their whereabouts...

Finally, there is also a fully transcribed page dedicated to the article
CLICK HERE

In an oversight, we missed the inclusion of this wonderful unfinished chalk drawing found with 11 others in an old shipping crate in an attic. This drawing, mostly in preliminary sketch form, lays out the entire West Hawley (MA) farm including the barn featured in both:

We have also added a graphic to these pages illustrating the area.

Our full scan of this article features the interior design of famous couple George Burns & Gracie Allen's home after close RSW friend Harold Grieve completed the work. Also featured in the article, hanging over the fireplace is RSW's Dooryard Elm which was purchased by the couple.

Reason #2 why we do this... A man watches a movie on TMC, notices the producer's name and believes he knows relatives of said producer, goes to Google to look the producer up, and FINDS us! He writes us to tell us what he knows and may have solved a missing link regarding the provenance of a painting. It makes it ALL worthwhile!

Located for sale on eBay, this unsigned painting is attributed to RSW. Attached to the back in RSW's handwriting is the location, Westlake Park and date, 1910. Read our research into the park and the possibility this was painted the year he left LA for Boston...

This previously unknown, signed and dated painting came to us by its current owner contacting us. It is one of RSW's earliest paintings as a professional, and he signed it "R Woodward 1918." We couldn't be more pleased to welcome it home!

In one of our MORE remarkable discoveries, we recently have learned of RSW friend Helen Patch who when asked by the Deerfield Academy's 1969-70 American Studies Group to offer any recollections of Woodward. She related some gems as well as provided insightful assessments of the artist.

Asked by the Deerfield Academy's 1969-70 American Studies Group to offer any recollections of Woodward. Mr. Vose, RSW's Boston art broker gave two wonderful stories he heard from RSW. One is hysterically funny and classic RSW, the other shows how private the artist was as well...

A black-and-white of the original sepia taken by Ashworth was found at the Buckland Historical Society and far better than anything the website had, and so we made a copy to add to the website.

On a visit by good friend F. Earl Williams in 1945, Williams brought along with him Kodachrome color film, which at the time was less than a decade old and took color pictures of his visit. Included in those pictures is a picture of this painting along side the subject of the painting, the east window.

New information found on this painting's buyer, Dr. Amey Chappell a prominent physician, and recipient of the 1967 Elizabeth Blackwell Medal given by the American Medical Women's Association, its highest honor, qualifies her as though not "famous, famous" famous enough for us to recognize her!

It started as a simple email inquiry from the historical society and led to the discovery of the location of where this chalk drawing was drawn, just off the Four Corners of Buckland where Ashfield, Hawley and Buckland all intersect. See our new graphics illustrating its perspective.

Added to the Woodward catalog is this painting named in the "The Helen Patch Letters" by Mrs. Patch. The painting was also loaned to the Deerfield Academy's 1970 Hilson Gallery exhibition honoring RSW but inexplicably was left off their list.

After all these years of trying we finally have an original image of this beautiful 'sugaring' painting. Up until now we had previously used scaned images of the painting taken from print material for which it was published.

Wow, what a find! This wonderful painting of the Beech Tree in Heath is unnamed and unsigned. It is of the the tree in baring its fall foliage colors. It is in great condition.

The image of this painting was discovered in a collection of KodaChome slides taken by RSW friend and amatuer photographer, Mr. F. Earl Williams himself and given to the Smithsonian Institute under his name as part of RSW's collection.

We have had a pretty good picture of this painting for some time now but we always look to get the best possible picture of a painting and we succeeded with the lastest pic of this painting.

Window Paintings are always difficult to photograph. Often the brown color of the wood paneling around the windows produces a glare that is hard to avoid, but we magange to in this new pic of this gorgeous painting.

The image of this painting was discovered in a collection of KodaChome slides taken by RSW friend and amatuer photographer, Mr. F. Earl Williams. We could not match it to any known paintings and it appears unsigned as well.

This has always been a difficult painting to photograph. RSW's use of light in the silk backdrop often produces an ambient glare when introduced to bright light needed to photograph... but we are getting closer to its natural look with this latest attempt.

FINALLY! We have been hoping to get some color image of this painting, a fav of RSW's, for some time. The image of this painting was discovered in a collection of KodaChome slides taken by RSW friend and amatuer photographer, Mr. F. Earl Williams.

It is so difficult to capture how striking some of RSW's work can be. Nothing can substitute seeing it in person and this painting is one of them, but we will keep trying to get the best picture we can until it comes close.

One of RSW's most unique pieces of work, drawn during his stay in Boston in 1930. Our new pictures of this drawing now includes close up pics of the people on the street and the window planters high above the scene.

A truly spectacular work by Woodward. This illumination features a woman playing the cello by an open door and heraldic device containing poetry. Both the artwork and verse done by RSW early in his career as a commercial artist.

One of two chalk drawings with the same name, this piece features a stream of autumn red running through a line of trees. It immediately reminds one of a Chinese Parade Dragon of which we believe RSW derived the name.

This is an extraordinary find! Woodward was known to have an adversion to doing portraits because he did not feel confident enough to paint them to his satisfaction. To learn that he had done a self-portrait when he was 13 years old simply shocked us.

A rare upright chalk drawing, this piece features a stunning sky above the Heath Pasture and Beech Tree in May. While May was a frequent subject of RSW's Beech Tree, this drawing is from an unusal perspective, not from the front of his studio but rather to the left of it.

A really unique painting. An early, impasti-styled and impressionistic sunset featuring a sun, with astomospheric purplish-pink skies, and as many as 9 distinct horizons! Woodward signed it but a name could not be found. This is really a rare treat given RSW preferred the skies of the north and south.

Reminicent of RSW's Beech Tree, this piece has a tall elm standing alone overlooking a valley of hills. It is unnamed, unsigned and feels incomplete or unfinished but we are glad to add it to our catalogue. Even unfinished, it is wonderfully Woodward's distinct perspective.

We recently added a new page for the original chalk drawing RSW mentions in his painting diary from which he made both In Old Boston and The Oyster House: Boston Romance. He never names the chalk in his comments.

Both of these pages have been revised as the result of the new information found in Unnamed: Across the Valley.

This painting recently came up for auction at Skinner Inc. and sold for $4,000. It is an early impressionistic piece of an ancient apple tree in bloom with hills in the distance but what is more remarkable was the sketch of what appears to be a version of Through The Hills in May

We have new hi-res images of this beautiful chalk drawing. We were also able to pinpoint a location from where we believe RSW drew it, with topographical maps.

A new signed but unnamed Quintessential Redgate painting featuring an atmospheric deep wood moonlit blue hazed brook and signed using a red "W" instead of RSW's trademark "S".

Going through a pile of loose documents, we came across a good-conditioned leaflet with an image of this painting on it and though still not great was better than the picture we have been using.

We had the opportunity to take new pictures of this terrific painting of the Connecticut River from Putney, Vermont. We revised the page to include a Google Earth screen capture of the river curve today.

It was recently discovered that a painting illustrated in an issue of McCall's Magazine (Dec. 1927) is this unnamed and unsigned painting found in 2017. The illustration was incorrectly attributed to the wife of RSW close friend and confidant Dr. Lawrence Lunt suggesting that the Lunt's may have been in possession of the painting at the time.