RSW's Diary Comments

Twin Barns, pastel painting

"Painted in 1933. The back of Keach's twin gray barns with pasture foreground, containing late snow drifts. A very earthy, strongly painted canvas, bought the year it was painted by Mr. and Mrs. Aaron C. Bagg, 72 Fairfield Avenue, Holyoke, Mass., who own two other 'Woodwards'."

Comments in a notebook by RSW:

"Sold August 9 , 1933 to Mr. and Mrs Bagg for $400.00"

From a May Pasture, 1934
Essentially the same scene now graduating to Spring. You
can see the bloom on the apple trees to the left. Woodward
really loved this scene, but his friend, artist, Stanley
Woodward spoiled it with making his own version of a
Halifax painting overshadowing this one at J. Marsh show.

New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 18, 1932

"A barnyard subject which is quite the most arresting thing on the walls of the Macbeth Gallery. The composition is as sound as it is personal, unforced, and all through the picture I rest contentedly on the artist's draftsmanship, one of his leading resources."

New York Post, Dec. 22, 1932 by Margaret Breuning

"....Last of Winter with its sense of loneliness and remoteness emphasized by the fences and stone walls enclosing the little lane where melting snow marks the reluctant loosening of winter's grasp are poetical statements of the real quality of New England countryside and living. The artist , however, places esthetic reliance on solid qualities of design which carry his conception convincingly. His structure and composition have no formula but serve him in good stead in each scene........"

New York Post, Dec.12, 1932
by Margaret Breuning on the Macbeth show.

New York American, Dec. 31, 1932, by
Malcolm Vaughan on the Macbeth exhibition

New York American, Dec. 31, 1932 by Malcolm Vaughan

"He lets us see the days of the passing of this tragic phase of the farmer's year in the superb Last of Winter, with its warming sunlight enveloping two barns, a cart-road, and some already greening fields."

New York Herald Tribune, December 18, 1932, by Royal Cortissoz on the Macbeth exhibit.