RSW's Diary Comments

Across the Winter River, 1937

Diary Comments for Across the Winter River:

"Painted in 1937 from the window of Richmond place, East Charlemont..."

Editor's Note:

This pastel painting Woodward called chalk drawings (most likely due to the type of pastel), is the same subject as Across the Winter River (to the right). Woodward makes no mention of the pastel in his diary remarks for the oil painting.

If the artist was outside capturing this scene, we would suggest he drew the chalk and worked from that to made the oil. The reason is, if it were as frigid as it looks outside, he could work much quicker with the chalks and they are less likely to freeze.

The interesting thing about the chalk and the oil is that the oil's colors and contrast appear richer with more depth whereas many of the examples we have of matching oils and chalks are remarkably similar. So much so, that when side by side one would have trouble choosing which was what. In fact, it was a point of pride for Woodward.

Adaline Havemeyer Frelinghuysen
from her 1905 Bryn Mawr College year-
book. Her sister, Electra, is known for
founding the Shelburne Museum, VT.

Adaline Havemeyer Frelinghuysen is far and away Woodward's best customer. A resident of Morristown, NJ, she and her husband Peter Hood Ballentine Frelinghuysen Sr. (a former law school classmate of not-yet-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and served as an usher at his wedding to Eleanor) summered in Manchester, VT. The earliest records we have of their relationship began with the start of the Southern Vermont Artist Association in 1927.


Over the years, we have learned that she and her husband bought as many as 40 paintings and we continue to discover more each year. Primarily because there were a number of private sales that were not recorded in Woodward's records, as well as, Adaline's appreciation for pastels and chalks which Woodward did not keep records. We believe her love of pastels comes from her mother (Louisine W. E. Havemeyer) and her close friendship with an artist famous for her pastels, Mary Cassatt. Cassatt was also friends with Edgar Degas one of the most famous pastel artists of all time whom we believe had a significant influence on Woodward.

If you are wondering, Adaline is the daughter of controversial sugar magnate and renowned art collector, Henry Osborne Havemeyer of the famed Havemeyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Her mother, a leader of New York City's sufferage movement.