Winter Evening Stream Paintings

Part 1:   THE  ZENITH  OF  POTENTIAL

Early in his career after recovering from his gunshot accident, Robert Strong Woodward began living and working in a studio he called Redgate. The building was the old "milk house" on the farm of his Uncle Bert and Aunt Tella Wells (his father's sister). He was having difficulty supporting both himself and his necessary hired help by just producing bookplates and small illuminations. He began to take up oil painting and produced a number of large oil paintings of the view out his studio windows. One of these views was of a winter scene of a pool of water fed by a small brook surrounded by trees.

We have found it impossible to accurately catalog the paintings made of this scene. His first paintings were done directly in the Redgate Studio, looking out the window. When Redgate Studio burned down, he continued to paint this same scene while working out of the Hiram Woodward studio. It is not known if he went back to the original location after Redgate burned down, or whether he simply copied an original painting from Redgate. Later still, he produced more copies at the Southwick Studio, sometimes destroying the original. It is unknown whether any of the painting names for which we have no pictures are ones that he personally destroyed.

This essay will attempt to describe these painting in somewhat chronological order. To our knowledge, one of the earliest, perhaps the first, painting of this scene was named Winter Mist.

ADDENDUMS to this FIRST SECTION: by BRIAN, JANUARY 2025

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It is known that RSW did not start to write the diary until approximately 1940. He attempted to fill in earlier paintings by memory. We have found more than a few examples of mistakes and omissions throughout the decades he tried to recall. One specific example is the mix up between the paintings, Winter Silence and Winter Pool that is the result of the artist making numerous versions and sizes of similar scenes.

The mystery for us is why Woodward did not just refer to his newspaper clipping scrapbook to refresh his memory. Below is a diary entry attributed to Winter Pool and later proved to be Winter Silence.

We do not fault Woodward for believing he was accurately recalling the name of this painting. We all believe the recall of our work and experience is correct, but we are talking about hundreds, if not a thousand, works of art from 1917 to 1940, and even the diary entry itself says to "check my clipping book." Despite the inaccuracies, we can piece together some sort of timeline, after all, the only substantial differences between Winter Pool and Winter Silence are the sizes. Both where painted around the same time.

When Dr. Mark began the website in 2002, he first started with building the artwork pages. He used two sources; the first was the 1970 catalog of Woodward's work prepared by the Deerfield Academy's American Studies Group, a group of students who devoted their entire school year to assembling as comprehensive a list of the artist's work as possible. Dr. Mark assisted the group along with Woodward's friend F. Earl Williams, and cousin Florence Haeberle. The group estimated that Woodward's catalog comprised of as many as "300" paintings.

Today, the catalog is approaching 800 paintings as we discover more each year. The second source Dr. Mark used was the original sepia print negatives that remained in the estate. He developed many of them to later scan into a digital image and add them to the artwork page. Along with the numerous paintings from the artist's private collection of his own work and the many people "Doc" knew to own Woodward paintings, he set out photographing as many as he could.

The problem with this is that we have no idea what Woodward did early in his career to photograph his work to send to galleries (This is how most exhibitions worked- you sent them a picture of the painting and on the back a colorful description to give the show's jury an idea of its tone and hue, etc.). Complicating matters are the two fires that destroyed his first and second studios, losing many of these early records along with it. The inconsistency of the diary entries for the years before 1925 makes this task even more difficult. Still, the internet has grown exponentially since 2010, and we have been aided greatly by these advancements, in particular, searching newspaper archives for any mention of Woodward, and focusing on the time period in question.

Dr. Mark also had the idea that he would start making what he called "Scrapbook pages," assembling and writing essays on certain topics and telling stories of his own about his time working for the artist. Mind you, he started all of this in his eighties, AFTER his retirement. We carry on this tradition, which originated with Dr. Mark, and have done our best to preserve his original work and build on it as we discover new information. One such Scrapbook page, as such, is an essay written by Brian about the evolution of the Window Picture Paintings, and he made an interesting connection between what we today call, "Quintessential Redgate Paintings" and his Window Picture Paintings. The last section of the essay is devoted entirely to the Redgate paintings. See the link below...

Below we added some addition images not available when Dr. Mark first created the original page of this essay. As you can see, these paintings pictures have come to us over the years from their owners, and two have names on their stretchers suggesting they exhibited somewhere, however, not only do we not have diary remarks on the paintings by the artist, we also do not have the year's they were made. Still, we have enough evidence from other paintings with known years to at least estimate the order in which they were made.

Over the years, we learned that Woodward erred in buying pre-treated primed canvas stretchers in bulk from an art dealer in Boston. The problem was that the manufacturer of the pre-treated canvases used animal by-products in its primer (its technical name is "Gesso") and the animal by-product shrunk, hardened, became brittle, and cause the paintings to crack quite severely. Many of these paintings were dated between 1920 and 1922, when demand for his work increased with his success. Perhaps he thought he was saving time...

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END OF FIRST ADDENDUM

Part 2:   RETURNS  WITH  AN  UNCERTAIN  FUTURE

Apparently this scene was one of his favorites. It was not only one of his earliest paintings, it was also one of his last. He made versions of the scene in at least three of his four studios. Some two decades after Redgate studio burned, I can remember RSW asking me to pull out one of the original paintings from the back storage room. This was during cold winter days of World War II, when he could not paint outside. He would place it under the natural light from the North window of his Southwick Studio, and then make a duplicate canvas. I am aware of at least two oil paintings made in this manner.

Woodland Mystery appears to be the final painting of the series. RSW hand wrote the title at the bottom of the sepia print. Apparently, even he, was confused about the title. As shown in the close-up below, it appears that he originally wrote "Woodland Mist," then corrected it to read "Woodland Mystery." At this time, we do not know if there is another painting named "Woodland Mist," but there are no diary entries, photographs, or mentions of it in any newspaper articles or exhibition notices. Below are three diary entries, also from after the Regate fire.

Editor's Note: The popularity of all of the interior woods specific to the Redgate studio launched the artist's career. He won the Hallgarten First Prize of 1919 at the Nation Academy of Design's annual show for Between Setting Sun and Rising Moon , and the New York Times Magazine review of his work compared him to artist Robert Blakelock, the most popular American artist of the 19th century and a tonalist. We believe Woodward was also inspired by James McNeill Whistler, who named his moody and tonal paintings using musical terms like symphonies and even nocturnes (a musical composition, often for piano, that is inspired by or evokes the atmosphere of the night, typically characterized by a romantic and dreamy, sometimes melancholic, quality). Of his first four paintings bought by museums, three were tonalistic 1926, Lyman-Longfellow Residence exhibition in Boston, the market for them had cooled quite a bit.

ADDENDUM to this SECOND SECTION: by BRIAN, FEBRUARY 2025

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When Dr. Mark wrote this essay in 2011, it was nine years into the website's existence, and he was 85 years old. Moreover, while the family had many of the documents Woodward left behind since 1959, the material was not only, not organized, it was scattered about in numerous storage areas and attics throughout the house. Doc did not begin to gather, sort and organize the material until after his retirement as a country doctor. He did a remarkable job given the task at hand, his age, and failing eyesight. Since then, with better methods in the cultivation and organization of the material, as well as new technologies to build databases and digitalize material... we simply have more context today. We can now cross-reference material and check information against multiple other sources.

In all, we know of six paintings Wood-ward made from the same woods behind where Regate once stood. Dr. Mark cites Woodland Mystery as the last, but we are not sure how he came to that conclusion because it appears that Winter Silence, mentioned above, and the painting Evening Tranquil Hour (below right), both painted in 1924, were the last two... of sorts. There may be more, but those did not see the light of day for another two decades. The subject of the third section of this essay.

For more context as to the disaster that derailed Woodward's career and reputation for four years and lasted another six years after that before he was fully back in the good graces of the art world, we must explain what caused the fire. The artist, under the pressure of his influential benefactors who pursued William Macbeth of Macbeth Galleries in New York City, the most prestigious American Art Gallery in the country, into giving Woodward his first one-man show. He had about 18 months to make 50 paintings, from which Macbeth was expected to select about half for the exhibition schedule in the slow month of January 1923.

This was also during the 1920-'21 Depression, and money was very tight. We know he sold 6 of his much-loved early paintings wholesale to the J.H. Miller Gallery in Springfield for a thousand dollars. It is very likely that he did this to fund the supplies he would need to make that many canvases. In March of 1922, Woodward gives us a good idea of how much financial stress he is under by expressing to Springfield (MA) Museum Director George Walter Vincent Smith that he cannot accept the price being offered by the museum for Under the Winter Moon. While he is honored, Woodward tells Smith,

We learn his expenses per month run him around $4,800.00 in today's money. We also know from our records that he is exhibiting less, suggesting all his effort is being put into completing the Macbeth order.

It is interesting to us that Woodward would mention in his letter to Smith that honor won't fill his "gaunt shed" with wood. In hindsight, it seems as if the artist foreshadowed the event to come. The night before 50 paintings were to be shipped to New York City, the tiny Redgate studio (once a shed itself) was packed full of shipping crates. It was going to be a cold night, and he was concerned the paintings might freeze, so extra wood was placed into the stove. What was not accounted for was that with less space in the studio, those extra logs super-heated the already tight space, causing the chemicals all artist use in their craft to reach their flash point, igniting them into the flames that would destroy the entirety of the studio and all of its contents.

What is not known about the paintings is how many of them were Winter Evening Streams, or Wooded Interiors for that matter. All but one painting perished, and that painting, Snow on the Mountain, is not a wooded interior. This is such a critical point in the artist's career, and so many things will rise out of its ashes. First and foremost, this will be the last time Woodward would share some of the blame in his misfortune do to carelessness (the other two being the accident that left him paralyzed and when he moved across the country to go to art school in Boston without having a sustainable plan for his care and well being). He will make it on his own for the most part but after this event, Mrs. Ada Moore would level his playing field by covering the cost of his nurse and attendant for the remainder of his life plus some of the cars he used professionally to paint en plein air.

He would also, at just short of 38 years old, own his first home. Woodward has been renting the main house at the Hiram Woodward Place since 1917, but now, in need of a new studio he works out a deal to purchase the 9 acre property that includes the cottage on the western edge of the property he rented between 1913 and '17. About a third of the large shed behind the house would be converted into his new studio and once it was ready to use one of the first things he did was paint his first Window Picture Painting, The Window: A Still Life and Winter Scene."

Three years after Woodward reportedly painted Evening Tranquil Hour (left), two Winter Evening Stream paintings appear at the artist's first One-Man Show in Boston on December 8, 1926, at the Lyman Residence. They are, Winter Silence (bottom left) and Evening Stream (bottom right). Both are the same pool of water from different sides. Only 11 paintings exhibited between the fire of 1922 and December of 1926. All but two were typical landscapes. Only Evening Tranquil Hour and Winter Silence were Winter Evening Stream paintings. As a matter of fact, Winter Silence, won top honors a month before appearing at the Lyman event when it hung at the Springfield Art League's special fall show. Evening Stream (#2) would hang in Stockbridge's annual art show in 1928 and finally later that year be part of Woodward's One-man show at the J.H. Miller Gallery. There will be an Evening Stream #3 made years later in 1932.

Finally, of last three Winter Evening Stream paintings mentioned in the previous paragraph, not one of them had any painting diary entry made by Woodward in the 1940s. Making matters worse, he would mix up Winter Silence with another painting we believe he made special for his patron-saint, Mrs. Ada Small Moore (one of the artist's powerful allies we suspect pushed Macbeth to give the artist his show set for 1923), confusing matters even further. That story is worthy of its own Painting Story Essay, but for now we will simply name the painting - Winter Pool, a 36" by 42" canvas, that has no exhibit record and we believe was not painted until 1927. As it happens, there was one correct fact about the painting. Woodward said it was the first purchased by Mrs. Moore... that is unless it was actually Road Guardians; a claim he makes for both paintings. Perhaps they were both first, and bought together but Winter Pool was made special because it was a gift for Mrs. Moore's sister. It was bought by Mrs. Moore but not for herself thus the conflicting painting diary entry comments. Both entries are true but not clear due to Woodward's odd approach to not being specific enough in detail for his painting diary.

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END OF SECOND ADDENDUM

Part 3:   A RETURN TO TRANQUILITY

[Repeated from Dr. Mark's previous section...  ]   Apparently this scene was one of his favorites. It was not only one of his earliest paintings, it was also one of his last. He made versions of the scene in at least three of his four studios. Some two decades after Redgate studio burned, I can remember RSW asking me to pull out one of the original paintings from the back storage room. This was during cold winter days of World War II, when he could not paint outside. He would place it under the natural light from the North window of his Southwick Studio, and then make a duplicate canvas. I am aware of at least two oil paintings made in this manner.

[Continued  from  Dr. Mark's  essay... ]
...I would keep the fireplace going full blast to make sure the studio was comfortable enough for him to keep working. Lena would bring out hot coffee. On especially cold days I would have to load up the schoolhouse stove (which stands just on the right of the fireplace) and keep fire logs burning in it also for extra heat. Most of these paintings were done when he was also suffering a lot of pain and shakiness. He often had to hold his right painting hand at the wrist with his left hand to keep it steady. There was nothing either he, nor we, nor I guess any doctor, could do for this. Usually, his FM radio was playing classical music softly in the background.

It was not common for Robert Strong Woodward to copy paintings such as this. There were times that this was done when he created a painting for sale on the west coast. He would then create a duplicate for sale locally. Another reason he would copy a painting is when he created a painting that was not acceptable to him. For reasons known only to him, he would mark the painting with a purple "D," and place it in the back storage room. Sometimes years later, usually during bad weather, he would pull out this painting and copy it, fixing whatever was unsatisfactory to him. Then the original would be destroyed. (Please see the essay on Purple "D" paintings.) Finally, there were several examples of a scene that simply worked so well, that he copied it several times. This is the case  with  the series of  paintings in  this essay,  as well as
those known as Through October Hills.

Mark Purinton
January 2011












THIS IS THE END OF DR. PURINTON'S ESSAY

ADDENDUM to this THIRD SECTION: by BRIAN, March 2025

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The last section of Dr. Mark's essay is perhaps its best. His observations prompted us today, in 2025, to put his statements to the test. It was obvious these scenes were a favorite of Woodward's. They first appear very early in his career. They are the only "Redgate-like" paintings made after his first studio burned. Of the three "Quintessential Redgate" paintings that exhibited in the Lyman residence ballroom, two of them were Winter Evening Stream paintings (Winter Silence, seen in addendum 2 and Evening Stream #2 ). Moreover, both of those paintings had "copies" made years after 1926 (we used the term copies lightly- the artist often varied size changing the perspective depending on if the size was more squarish or rectangular changing the scene in various ways).

Winter Pool (1927) was made from Winter Silence for Woodward's patron-saint, Mrs. Moore and given by her to her sister as a gift. Evening Stream #3 was made either from Evening Stream #2 or its sepia print sometime in 1932 for the Deerfield Inn where it hung for three years before exhibiting a few more times between '35 and 1942. Yet still, in the artist's rising prominence only Winter Silence and Evening Stream #3 are seen in the early 1930s. Winter Silence actually plays a huge role in defining Woodward discussed on its artwork page:

Woodward not only forgets Winter Silence, a 1926 First Prize winner at the Springfield Art League's special fall exhibition a month before the Lyman show, but ALSO mixes it up with of all paintings, it spawned, Winter Pool in his painting diary. But this does not change the fact that Winter Silence was a critical painting featured in the Boston Herald's special Rotogravure section, a few months after winning a gold medal at Boston's Tercentennial Celebration event for New England Drama and its caption was quoted and picked up by the news services and used 9 times in articles about exhibits the painting itself did not exhibit. Do you understand how rare that is?

Evening Stream #3 is the only Winter Evening Stream painting to be made in the early 1930s, however, it was made either from the 1924 painting or its sepia print image. It also appears to have been made for the Deerfield Inn where it hung for three years (1932 to 1935). After that, it was sent to the Myles Standish hotel in Boston, the Westfield Athenaeum in '38, out to California to hang in long-time friend, Harold Grieve's gallery in Los Angeles for a couple years, and finally back to Boston for the grand finale of the Myles Standish hotel before it closed for good. Each location it was sent to was special to the artist indicating its importance to him.

OH, AND GET THIS... it turns out that Evening Stream is reportedly a reverse image of Winter Silence/ Pool. Same scene, just flipped! This was stated in his painting diary entry for the canvas,

... and even in this instance completely forgets the more accomplished Winter Silence. It is NOT exact. The rocks in the stream are in different locations but the beech trees and pool shape is the same, making it a composite painting of sorts...

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THE END OF THE THIRD SECTION ADDENDUM

BRIAN COMMENTARY...

Dr. Mark recognized that Woodward's Winter Stream Paintings were different than even the dusky wooded interiors the artist made from the rear of his Redgate studio. It is all so symbolic I could write a book on it. We believe the name Redgate is an homage to "the sacred structure of the Japanese Shogun and Buddhist religions called the Torii Gate. To pass through a Torii Gate is:

This is not some remote concept to Woodward; he lived just a couple of blocks from Los Angeles' Little Tokyo neighborhood in 1906, just months after the San Francisco earthquake displaced thousands of Japanese people who migrated to LA. At that time, the City of Angels had the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan. On the day of Woodward's terrible accident, we believe that one of the reasons he and his friends started traveling before dawn to catch the Alpine train to get back to the city before the big Labor Day parade began was to also go to the first Japanese Cultural Festival being held later that same day in Venice Beach. We also have a letter from a friend asking Woodward to "Do let me know when you leave for Japan," In his estate remains a Japanese print on iri-rice paper with a label from a shop in Los Angeles a couple blocks from Westlake Park where the artist made an oil painting in 1908.

The fact that Woodward is making these paintings of the woods just behind the studio figuratively suggests that the artist passes through the Redgate Studio "to enter sacred ground," making it also quite literal. If there is anything one needs to know about Woodward, he is more than meets the eye. He loves elevating and marrying the literal with the figurative. The alchemical marriage of the opposites. He is incredibly complex in a plain package, focusing on simple things, yet he elevates them nonetheless. These are all key qualities to the values and principles of art in the East. The man is very intentional when it comes to such things. At the same time, while intentional, there are always elements outside one's awareness. This line blurs for us when trying to pinpoint when he is aware and when he is not, it is most likely both sharing the same space.

Woodward's dusky wooded interiors share some qualities with his Winter Stream Paintings. Both indicate a transitional phase of entering an unknown future. Usually, entering the woods as night approaches is about as scary as it gets, which is why it is used in movies quite a bit as a device to build tension. Just the thought of it is enough to invoke dread in many. Because one can only see so far in the woods, they also represent the immediate or present moment-- what is near. However, where the wooded scenes are an unknown future, his winter stream paintings are latent or quiescent. Its quantity is not unknown; its presence is felt by the weight of its pressure, seen in the ice-dammed pools building to such depths. Those streams are generally not that deep. The waters are obstructed. However, this will not always be the case. There will be a transition when the snow melts and the stream flows again; when it does, it will nourish the upcoming planting season. Those pools of water will drain into the meadow nearby. So these paintings suggest some sort of evitability. Something is definitely coming...

The best thing about latent potential is the inherent possibility that comes with it. Potential can go unfulfilled or mishandled. Any misstep could dissipate the building energy or ruin its momentum. Symbolically, these paintings, while seemingly serene and peaceful, portray some very com-plex emotions, one in particular being stress. Woodward is seeking calm, but the tension is there just below the surface. There is also the idea of an approaching critical mass. In psychological terms, critical mass refers to "the point at which a certain number of people or a specific type of behavior/idea is present, leading to a self-sustaining change or trend, often described as a 'tipping point'." [ fs.blog] This point will be essential when we lay out the pattern in which these paintings appear throughout the artist's career. So, the wooded interior is about entering an unknown, and the WES paintings are about Woodward's inner struggle to remain calm under the stress and pressure of the transitional phase. Phase transitions always occur with an oomph. There is no intermediate phase between a liquid and a solid. All of the conditions must be present before water turns to ice and vice versa. It is, or it is not... It is a razor's edge between fulfilment and the unrealized.

Up to this point in Woodward's life, before the Redgate fire, all of his greatest tragedies and disappointments are his own doing. While accidents, he shares some of the blame for his misfortunes. Simply put, his carelessness with a revolver led to the accidental discharge of the gun when removing his sweater. The most basic reason he did not last until Thanksgiving at the School of Fine Art in Boston is that he and his good friend from Bradley, Joseph Cowell, agreed to see to his daily care and routine without a nurse. Naively believing the two young men could pull it off... it did not last. Woodward was very sick and was sent to be with family in Buckland, and never returned. We can't even call it home because he had lived in California and Illinois for 5 years prior.

We believe Woodward is aware of his part in both incidents. We also believe that he never really intended to be a professional painter; it was his last resort. There is considerable evidence indicating that Woodward, a bibliophile, wanted to be an illustrator and work in publishing. The truth of the matter is that being a professional painter was the only business model that works for an artist living in rural New England. To be an illustrator meant being in close proximity to editors and publishers and networking. His insecurities about painting were evident when he went to prominent artist Gardner Symons for his opinion of his work- was it good enough? So here Woodward is a whirlwind of early success, a national prize, his patrons pressuring the most famous American Art gallery owner, William Macbeth, to give the freshly minted star his own One-man show in the mecca of New York City. He is clearly still uncertain of his talents and abilities. It is all pressing on him and coming too fast. This is when he begins making the WES paintings, which reappear at every critical point of his career thereafter...

As I alluded to above, Woodward seemingly foreshadowed the upcoming Redgate fire in his letter to Walter Smith of the Springfield Museum. The honor of having his painting hanging in the museum would not pay for the wood to fill his shed because it was an overheated stove inside the studio was most likely the cause of the fire. It was Woodward's decision to add more wood to the stove because he feared the paintings being stored inside to be picked up and sent to New York would freeze. The tight space in the small studio with 50 crated paintings actually contributed to the former dairy shed superheating, igniting the chemicals all artists use in painting with oil. Once again, carelessness contributed to one of Woodward's most devastating setbacks. While he would have other tragedies befall him later in his life, this would be the last time the artist would be a contributing factor.

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So Woodward begins painting the WES pictures to cope with the stress of the new expectations and pressures put on him due to his success. He returns to them after his Redgate fire, perhaps to help him grieve the loss of his much loved first studio (and, by extension, the 300 rare collectible books it held). As a matter of fact, by our count, he makes more post-fire WES paintings than before the fire. Some of these canvases sit in his storage space for being technically subpar for whatever reason for 20 years. The question now is, does the pattern hold up? Does Woodward turn to the Winter Evening Stream paintings at other, pregnant, stress-invoking, critical times in his career? The answer is he does...

I have already given you enough to understand their original and how Woodward returned to the WES paintings after the Redgate fire. Still, it is important to remember that his career did not kick back into gear until December 1926, a week short of four years to the day after his Redgate fire. He officially has his one man show, but it is NOT at a gallery. It is held in the second ballroom of the home of Mr. & Mrs. Ronald Lyman on Beacon Street in Boston. The Lymans are neighbors of Woodward's greatest advocate and benefactor, Mrs. Mary "Minnie" Eliot. The first painting is bought by another Beacon Street neighbor and friend, art collector John Spalding. It is Woodward's first professionally made Window Picture painting, literally named: The Window; a Still Life and Winter Scene.

When said out loud, it all feels very staged or put on. So we had to ask ourselves, why go to such lengths? The answer we are afraid is that part of the fallout of the Redgate fire was that not only was Macbeth furious at the whole episode, he let it be known. We know he held a grudge and did not give Woodward his first show in his gallery until well after he re-established himself in late 1931. We think this all indicates that no gallery was willing to take a risk on Woodward, and so Minnie and probably Mrs. Ada Moore, as well, conspired to kick-start his career again. After the Lyman show is where we pick up the rest.

⮟ 1927 to 1937
 The years of Woodward's ascension as he works his back from disaster he makes only one "new" WES painting (Winter Pool) before 1931 and that is for a special patron and its inspiration exhibits a few times. Also, it is not new but rather a slightly larger and squarer version of Winter Silence. The other WES canvas is made after he wins the 1930 gold medal at the Boston Tercentennial exhibition and is also made from an earlier painting Evening Stream #2 but almost the same painting. Both original paintings hung at the Lyman show and so they are merely carry-overs of the previous 1923 to 1925 period. Evening Stream #3 to hang in the Deerfield Inn for a few years. It was not uncommon for him to do this. Other examples are paintings that hung in the Myles Standish Hotel lobby in Boston, Sweetheart Tea House Restaurant in Shelburne Falls and Weldon Hotel lobby in Greenfield. All during the same period of time.

⮟ 1937 to 1945:  After surviving another tragic fire in July of 1934, Woodward, for many reasons, retreats to home and safety as his popularity continues to rise. The fire does not hurt his reputation like the first one did. However, he did have to make it publicly known he was still, "open for business" and that no paintings were lost. This is the absolute height, or pinnacle of his career. He has a lot going on in 1937... he wins an award in Albany, NY, his work is hanging with some of the greats of all time in a special exhibition in Los Angeles, and he has a looming commission to paint a series of canvases of historic and early American churches and fine homes for the Mabel B. Garvan Collection at Yale University. The Garvan Collection is the finest of it kind and still thrives to this day where his painting Enduring New England still remains as one of less than 250 paintings of over 2,000 originally purchased to start the collection.

It is now more than a decade that Woodward has worked on building and establishing himself as one of the best landscapist in the county but we believe he is growing tired. We believe he finds himself conflicted as to what he wants to do with the rest of his career. It appears that 1937 seems to be the catalyst of this impending change. We think there are several factors at play, one most of all is the events occurring around the world with Germany and Japan. Also, Mr. Garvan dies just 20 days after buying Enduring New England leaving the artist on the hook for the other paintings he made but were not yet reviewed by Garvan. It is possible this event might have been the catalyst. Garvan was just ten years older than Woodward. The death was sudden and unexpected. Garvan would not get to enjoy the success of his achievements, so maybe Woodward began to reevaluate his priorities. So we did some accounting...

We found that in the years between 1937 and 1945, Woodward made more than half of all his Window Picture paintings, as well as his Beech Tree paintings. He also made most of his "composite" paintings (12) during this period of time, and "re-painted" as many as 12 paintings from the 1920s kept his storage space. More than half of his paintings were made from his home between these years (a reminder that RSW bought the Heath property in 1938 and built his 'pasture house' which was finished by 1940).

Furthermore, the artist would also paint 6 painting of the Charlemont bridge after it is washed away by the 1938 hurricane that devastated New England. Those paintings were also made from an early painting he made in the 1920s. He made his first still life painting in more than 6 years, ( Chinese Lily ). There are another 5 or 6 paintings he made from a window of his Southwick home and studio windows. Finally, there are several canvases made on the street he lived on or just around the corner. It is clear that he is staying close to home and while you cannot say he took it easy (he averaged just about the same amount of paintings per year as his career average of 18) he certainly made it easier on himself by traveling less.

⮟ 1946 to 1950:
 Another hiatus from the WES paintings also is the artist at his esteemed best. His paintings from this time, as his health declines, are arguably among the best painted works. He would win as many awards and prizes in this period of time as he did from 1930 to 1937 or 1919 to 1926. Most of them Window Picture painting and a Beech Tree painting that would end up hanging in the U.S. Embassy in London! (see: Snowing on the Hill).

⮟ 1951-1952:
 With the end clearly in sight now, his health deteriorating (he travels to Boston routinely from 1949 to '51 to see doctors), and is hands shaking almost too hard for him to control, Woodward again returns to the special WES paintings making two back-to-back canvases, Woodland Mystery and the other is unnamed but the same scene which would go to his close friends, the Rhoades in the winter of 1950- '51, and his last painting right after is, Spring Window which would go to the artist most appreciated client, life long teacher, Miss Mabel Raguse.

The WES painting all appear at these very specific times in his life. The times when he was perhaps at his most vulnerable... uncertain, perhaps insecure, or he was transitioning to a new phase of his life that has their own kind of emotional anguishes yet also holds their own possibilities. The pattern is apparent. When he was working to achieve something where he had a clear objective. From 1927 to 1937, only two new canvases were made and they were similar to earlier painting and created for a special reason. The second respite, 1946 to 1950, coincides with the end of WWII and the years he makes half of his Window Picture paintings, many of which won prizes and awards. Equally important is the fact that paintings made between 1946 and '50 are among his most mature and sophisticated in both technique and composition of his career during its decline. It astounds us. We feel strongly they served as a method of meditation. The subject and scene comforted him, and help him process ambiguous emotions and thoughts providing a calming influence. It was his "safe space."

Woodward's faithfulness to specific philosophical and academic ideas cannot be understated. Actually, some critics found him too "academic" for their liking (William Macbeth thought he was "too literal"). Potential is certainly one of his themes. Sometimes potential is as simple as saying, "I can...(filling in whatever it is you aspired to do)." After his accident that left him paralyzed, he was forced to face what potential his life possessed going forward. In such a situation, one either explores what can be done or just focuses on what they cannot do. Woodward chose his path and took some risks, and in many ways, as it does for all of us, life makes corrections as if to say, "No, that won't work..." It can feel as if something was taken away, but those with a faith like his adapt to every setback until the inevitability of one's potential finds its path, and they make the most of what presents itself. After his death, several tributes appeared in newspapers, and a couple of them made it a point to mention how he did such an unlikely thing- make a full-time career painting landscapes. You need to understand just how important that point is. Landscape art, particularly the kind made by Woodward, is a fairly small niche in the art world, which is dominated by portraits paintings, people and city scenes and architecture. What's more is that he did it during some of the most turbulent times in our history!

Woodward painted with an admiring eye the potential in every abandoned farm and run-down barn or house he made. He celebrates how life continues even after trees are broken literally in half or dug deep into a rock ledge, exposed and alone on hill in a pasture and far from its normal environment and safety of the woods with its brethren such as a great Beech Tree on Burnt Hill; or a region of the country being mocked and ridiculed for being listless, despite being the keystone of its prosperity in education and founding principles. It is within everything he paints because you are a product of your experience and for Woodward, he shows you what matters... and that is that no matter the circumstances, it is not that anything is possible. That is a ridiculous idea and if true, Woodward may have never become a landscape artist. What matters is that life finds a way, no matter the conditions and in that sense, anything is possible so long as potential is there.

Brian C. Miller, April, 1, 2025

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