RSW's Diary Comments

That large elm tree you see on the other side is
featured here in this painting Dooryard Elm. This picture
is of its sepia print because it is the better of the two im-
ages we have of the painting. What we do not know is if
this painting is ALSO a later summer painting. Hmm...

"Painted summer 1944. A picture of the rear of the Halifax house with sunlit gray gable of little ell the center of focus, with giant elm arching over it. One of my finest composed and freshest painted pictures of the loved Halifax house. Worked on it the last Sunday I was out with Mark (August 1944) before he went into service, the Sunday I introduced 'David Grayson' to him and talked of the fuller appreciation of daily living and daily romance, a Sunday he and I, as Sorrel and Kit, both cherish. Bought August, 1947, by Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Hales of 183 Lawrence St., Gardner, Mass." [Emphasis is ours]

Editor's Note:

We are unsure want is meant by "Cecil Grant" (1946) in the exhibitions list. It was assumed he was a gallery owner. However, a quick Google search produced a number of online auction sites with paintings sold for a Vermont artist named, Cecil Vezin Grant. It is possible he was an artist and had a gallery. We did find him listed in the programs for the annual Southern Vermont Artist Association's (SVAA) annual event. Below is a snippet from the 1948 catalog.

Listing for C.V. Grant in the 1948 Southern Vermont Artist Association's program

Woodward in his Packard
painting what we believe is THIS painting

The Art Digest, May 1, 1945
by Margaret Breuning

Peace of Years depicts a little, white house leaning against a sagging barn of weathered textures. The trees spreading over them, shrubs and rank grasses growing insolently up to their doorways, seem to have taken root deeply in the earth and become part of the scene around them, all pretence of struggle against the forces of nature abandoned."

To our delight we found this photograph (to the right) of Woodward in his Packard painting what we believe is THIS painting, given his location and perspective of the Halifax house That would mean that in all likelihood, Dr. Mark took the picture the day before he would leave for the Air Force!

Below: A scanned excerpt from a letter where RSW made mention of this piece and saying, "I consider it one of the finest canvases I ever made, technically, in composition and in color."

Woodward describes this painting in a letter...

"One of them, a 27 x 30, 'The Peace of Years' was painted summer before last, and I consider it one of the finest canvases I ever made, technically, in composition and in color. It is of the rear of the house. The center of focus is the sunlight on the chimney and pale gray weathered boards of the ell gable (very sun soaked and beautiful), the tall old Elm rising back of it - the main part of the house running out of canvas to the right, the sun and shadow on the old red boards of its gable, showing beautifully.