Quick Reference

Time Period:
Prior to 1921

Location:
The artist's first studio, Redgate.

Medium:
Oil on Canvas

Type:
Landscape

Category:
Woods, Trees

Size:
25 X 30

Exhibited:
J.H. Miller Galleries, 1921

Purchased:
George Walter Vincent Smith
Art Museum, Springfield, MA
via the J.H. Miller Galleries.

Provenance:
NA

Noteworthy:

This painting was added to the art collection of the Springfield Museum in 1921.

Featured Artwork: Early Moonlight

Click here for a high resolution image of painting

RSW's Diary Comments

None.

Additional Notes

Purchased by George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, Springfield, MA., March 1921. Came up for auction in 1985 at Skinner Inc. Auction but was not sold. Low estimate was $3,500. The high estimate was $5,500. The painting was eventually sold by the museum in a private sale shortly thereafter.

The painting again came up for auction in December 2020 through the online site, Aspire Auctions, and sold at the hammer price of $3,100 ($3,658 including the buyer's premium fee). We believe the price reflected the condition of the painting itself. It would need some work. Its condition was described as follows, "Craquelure, minor touches of inpainting, loose on stretcher, light stretcher bar marks. Prior tear with repair lower left. Prior repairs with losses to frame," suggesting it may need to be restretched and secured more soundly to the stretcher. We were aware of the prior damage to the canvas from records archived at the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum. [Review documents]

Two images of the back of the painting show
various markings and a label for the G.W.V. Smith
museum. Above: we rotated the image to show the
start of another sketch which Woodward apparently
abandoned in favor of the dark wooded scene.

Springfield Union, date unknown, 1926:

"'Early Moonlight,' one of the smaller pictures at the local museum is another one of his wood interiors painted in winter with a beautiful effect of light filtering through the trees from a luminous sky."

Springfield Union, date unknown, 1926 regarding RSW's first, breakout, One Man Show held at the home of Boston financier Ronald Lyman

Springfield Union, March 1921: by Ernest Newton Bagg in regard to Early Moonlight

"This canvas shows the edge of mystery in forest form, the blue-black trunks of multitudinous trees with ghostly patches of moonlit snow and glimpse of cold sky beyond treated in a remarkably effective way. This was the first time Mr. Woodward has exhibited here in Springfield. His pictures have already gained recognition in the Boston Art Club, the Worcester Museum, the National and Buffalo Academies, the Albright Gallery and the annual Carnegie exhibition. Last year he was the recipient of honors of the first class in the Concord exhibition and the year before he won the first Hallgarten prize of the National Academy. His work has, in all the accounts of these various exhibitions been characterized as showing an intimate grasp of the commoner phases of nature coupled with an unusual power of imparting to even sharply outlined features their full value of charm while still preserving absolute naturalness of color. Mr. Woodward, who is unfortunately handicapped by invalidism, is an indefatigable worker."