Featured Artwork: Early Autumn

RSW's Diary Comments

Early Autumn laid over In Early Autumn

"Painted in 1940 in the studio from the canvas Down an August Road. Composition similar with buildings left out and coloring changed from summer to that of early fall. Made first for Gussie Borun (who owns the house at Halifax) of Beverly Hills, California, (through Harold Grieve) and sent out to California for Mrs. Borun to see, but she didn't care for it so it came back to me".

Dairy Comments for In Early Autumn:

"Painted in 1945. Exhibited at Vose Galleries in 1945."

ADDENDUM for In Early Autumn:

For whatever reason, RSW incorrectly identified this painting's year of orgin. According to Early Autumn's diary comments and our exhibition records, In Early Autumn: was painted in 1939 and sent to RSW friend Harold Grieve to show to his client, Gussie Borun. It was returned, exhbited at the Jones Library, Amherst College, in 1941 and later hung in the Vose Gallery, Boston, from 1945 - '49. We believe it was cut shortly thereafter removing his signature and sold without RSW re-signing the painting.

The cut canvas
of Early Autumn

This painting, as well as all the others except its original source, Down an August Road, are composite paintings, something RSW was experimenting with in the 1940s. See The Home Road for more...

The image to the right shows where RSW cut this canvas down. As it is told to us by its current owner some years ago, the decision to cut the canvas was made after a critic criticized the piece for having two focal points.

There is also a chalk drawing by the same name, Early Autumn, Chalk. Drawn in 1939, the same year as In Early Autumn. We are certain of this because the chalk was cited in the exhibition records as having exhibited in different locations.

With regard to the criticism the orginal painting's composition contained two focal points we created a side-by-side comparison of the original source of all the "Early Autumn" composite paintings, Down an August Road, with that of In Early Autumn to illustrate the matter.

A side-by-side comparison of Down an August Road, (left) once believed to have been cut-down and In Early Autumn (right) now believed to be the painting cut-down and renamed Early Autumn (shown over its original)

What we DIDN'T realized until we matched up and laid Early Autumn over In Early Autumn that it appears that a portion of the sky was also cropped. This could be to fit a standard frame size of the time but was are just speculating in that regard.