RSW's Diary Comments

"Painted in winter 1938 -9. A painting I wished to make with all the old New England impressions I especially love. Composition suggested from a black and white photograph in Clifton Johnson's 'Picturesque Franklin' of a farm in Hawley. (Don't know just where). I poured myself into this canvas, submitted it to the jury for the 1939 New York World's Fair. It was accepted and hung in their large Exhibition of Contemporary American Art. Later I showed it at the Manchester Exhibition of the Southern Vt. Artists from where it was bought by Mr. Bartlett Arkell of Canajoharie, N.Y. City and Manchester, to be hung I understood in his Canajoharie Art Museum."

This is the black and white photograph
in "Picturesque Franklin" in 1891 that
was the source for the oil painting.

Also titled New England Inspiration or Inspiration on some photographs.

North Adams Transcript, July 20, 1939

"Western Massachusetts visitors to the New York World's fair will find a familiar scene in the Contemporary and Art building in the painting New England Impression, by Robert Strong Woodward, Shelburne Falls artist. The painting, featuring a rambling farm house in the winter with a range of New England Hills in the background, is an excellent example of the art in which Mr. Woodward has established his reputation. It is on display in gallery 10 of the building."