Recent Website Updates

We are looking to add greater depth of insight that fleshes out more context than we have ever had about Woodward's career as well as his personal values and principles. The stories just begin to tell themselves. And something like that results from processing the information one has available, turning it into empirical (measurable) data. Once it has been compiled, it then needs to be interpreted and analyzed and you start to see patterns and connections that are not always obvious despite being right under your nose for years.


More daunting will be the Scrapbook portion of the website. As of right now, the information under the Redgate Studio, the Hiram Woodward Place, and the Heath Pasture House are all woefully out-of-date. It is a top priority for us to update these pages, especially the Hiram Place, for which there is so much never-before-known information to add.


In addition to the studio pages, we have been assembling as many as 15 new Scrapbook pages and just as many in the queue for a much needed update. We suggest you go to our new Miss Mabel page to see what we mean. There are also important people in Wood-

ward's life we have neglected to give their due. We are now distinguishing some of these individuals as "patrons", "benefactors", and sponsors. One page in particular will reveal just how critical one women was to Woodward having any career at all.


UPDATED Nov. 2, 2023
What a crazy month. We are busier than ever sorting out and vetting information to see that our ducks are all in a row and accurate. We hit two snags this month that left Brian about to pull his hair out in frustration. A great lesson in gathering all your facts before you begin changing things. It is so amusing how we can be so right in the wrong way, lol. We were convinced there was only 3 paintings, only we were incorrect which 3 they were. Fortunately we got it all sorted before we really made fools of ourselves. It is our featured update to the right  ⮞


Also, a recent visit to the Southern Vermont Art Center produced a shocking revelation that raises numerous questions and delivers new pictures of one of Woodward's earliest paintings. Unfortunately, it was too late in the month to get it ready for you now but we have NEW PICTURES of The Hungry Barn!

We found an old color image of what we assum-ed to be The Village in Spring (1). Only after a lot of work did we realize: It was NOT. Moreover, it can't be April in North Hadley (2) either because that painting is the origi-nal painting cut down to be renamed The Village in Spring! The chalk drawing, The Village in Spring, (3) was believed to be mislabeled in an article, which we now believe was actually referring to the image we found. Leaving its name to be- April in the Village (4) once believed to be the mixed up name of the chalk and not a real painting. Phew...

When we began to update and make new discoveries regarding this work of art we also reached out to its owner who we had not had contact with in nearly 16 years. It was a shot in the dark. We weren't sure any of our information would still be good. We posted our changes and promoted them only to receive new images a few days later. Thank you so much!

This painting recently appeared on an art website. No name was given for it. It was refer-red to generically as "Winter Landscape." Yet, we had a corresponding sepia print labeled, Winter Peace. Unfortunately, there are 3 paintings by that same name. One is definitely not this painting leaving two others. However, this one does not match RSW's diary comment. Go to the page for more!

In the process of correcting two broken links on the New Silo artwork page we needed to check other related pages, which included reviewing an essay written by this website's founder, Dr. Mark Purinton in 2006. It has held up well over time. We did not have anything to add to it. The page just needed a reform-atting with some of the new tools we use throughout the website. I (Brian) informed Larch what I was doing and he (Larch) tells me he just came across new material his father wrote to add to the Silo page!

We love these sort of coincidences. We have had quite a few lately. They always leave us feeling like we are on the right path. Doc's new information is quite in-formative, educational, and entertaining. What's best about these changes is that they were inspired by visitors to the website who helped him with additional facts, for which we are most grateful.

We have known about this pastel painting for some time but we had NO idea what it could possibly entail. More than that, we believed the name was wrong. Did you know that there was once a wharf at the end of North Boston's Long Wharf? Or that it was called the "T" Wharf? We didn't. Also, we were under the impression it was made the year Woodward stayed in Bos-ton for a month- nope try again. Enjoy this read.

We are digging deep into the mountains of folders and files collected since the start of the website. The objective is multifaceted, however, one of the primary objectives is to find images once thought lost forever. This is one of those photos. More over, this is one of Woodward's favorite subjects and this piece the prize of the 3 we know and probably the couple of others we suspect exist.

We erred here... the sepia print we believed was an unnamed artwork was in fact the sepia print for After Rain.

Despite our embarrass-ment (we swear we look over everything we could think of) we want to thank the friend who caught the mistake and notified us. Thank you!

This sepia print of a painting was mislabeled a long time ago as the sepia for a painting named Aged Roofs. We recently found a better scan of the print and realized it was NOT Aged Roofs but an entirely different and unknown painting. Aged Roofs is a spring painting whereas this is a late summer scene. The better pic allowed us to see the sky was very different. It is the only "unnamed" paint-ing of the Halifax House we have.

It surprises us sometimes what we lose track of, such as a much better picture of a painting than what is currently on the website. This is one of those times... we recently came across an image of this painting from a few years ago that far exceeded the old, low resolution, image we had on its page. In updating the page we realized some other things missed when we last updated it over a year ago. Primarily, what makes it special in both time and space.

This new image of the 40" x 50" oil painting comes to us from the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester, VT. The painting was gifted to them by a close friend of the artist. It is a wintry and dramatic scene of the Keach Farm from a distance precar-iously hanging along the side of the hill. What is great about it is that it shows the entirety of the farm and we created a graphic linking the buildings to various paintings.

As part of our update of the artwork pages, we are adding whatever context we can find connected to the artwork. For this painting we have discovered clue suggest-ing that this painting may be more important than realized. First RSW gives us his most detailed diary entry describing the piece, there is no evid-ence it exhibits, and then he sells it to a VIP just months after his Heath Studio burns...

This 20" x 40" painting has the distinction of being one of Woodward's rarest 1937 to 1945 ex-periments. The artist was toying with assembling paintings using combin-ations of other paintings. He made a series of wide panoramic paintings which had become the fashion of the time to hang on the mantle over the fireplace. This paint-ing is one of only five and his most ambitious that has a link to another that did not work at all.

This artwork page has been updated and we learn from Woodward's diary comments that it is similar to Out of the Past. Only this version was sent to his friend Harold Grieve on the West Coast to sell. This was something the artist did when he had a subject worthy painting and the original was bought by a highly regarding VIP.


See also: Out of the Past for the VIP.

The advantage to going back and lending a criti-cal eye to each and every artwork page is just how much a fresh look can reveal. This pastel is a great example. Not only were we able to connect it to another, better known pastel and the same farm but the two paintings appear the same year, exhibit to-gether at the same show, and follow a similar traj-ectory across the country to land in the same state through different owners!

This chalk drawing comes to us from its own-er with a story that it was a wedding gift, given in 1915. There is no reason to doubt the story. For one thing, Woodward loved personalizing his gifts. For another, al-though oil paintings dom-inate our attention, the pastel paintings were there from the beginning in 1918 and getting more praise.

A trip to Stockbridge to visit their public library, and have some lunch at the country store of the Rockwell mural of Main St. fetched us a new picture of this painting. It also revealed some other things that clears up some confusion and confirmed other things.

This is the OLDEST (1921-'22) known painting of the Beech Tree on Burnt Hill in Heath, MA... by years. Read the story!

If it has not become ob-vious yet, it soon will. We are making a concerted effort, in part as tribute to Paul Harvey's, "... and now you know The REST of the Story," feature of his radio program to look at the backstory of certain paintings for greater context.

This painting is at the crux of an issue that plagues Woodward's lasting legacy in misunderstanding concealing his true interest.

This was updated a couple of months ago as part of our efforts to bring together and link exhibitions with their articles. This is one of those paintings that because we do not have the greatest of pictures, it gets neglected. If you do not know this, Woodward did not like neglect and so we gave this page some love. We connect it to another, better image we have of the same barns from a different angle along with the praise it got in a newspaper clipping.

With no image of this painting, it is one of the overlooked but its name is important, or rather we say opalescence is important to Woodward. But that is another story for another time. What is of import on this page is its role in drawing our attention to Woodward's handling of the situation AFTER his Hiram home and studio fire. On this page is the article where he addresses the rumors and misinformation being published in defense of his reputation.

Since the beginning of the website, this painting's name was listed as "Grey NE" due to contradicting inform-ation. The evidence was looking us right in the face but it was from a traditionally inaccurate source. It took us a while to comb through all of the information we have and found enough evidence to change the name and we share the story with you.

  We have long suspected that the names of both these paintings are related to the Golden Ratio more than the season of autumn (though still related). But the Golden Ratio (based on the Fibbiaci Sequence showing the natural proportions of distribution found in nature). Proportion is important to composition and you will find the aspect called the Golden Spiral in a large number of beautiful art work. Woodward is no exception to this, only with these two paintings the spiral is notably intentional, thus the name.

  We were inspired to illustrate the spiral found in these paintings when a woman visiting the 2022 Memorial Hall Museum exhibit with her daughter. Standing in front The Golden Slope, took her hand and traced the air in front of the painting revealing the spiral to her child. What surprised us was this same woman, with her daughter in tow, did the same thing with at least five paintings also on display. Today, we have identified as many as 60 others. Expect a Scrapbook page soon!

Another one of those painting stories that has an odd journey... from being bought by the new owner of the Halifax (VT) House, to being returned to Woodward, it's exhibition record, being part of the October 1946 issue of American Artist, to selling again at the Founder's Show of the Grand Central Art Gallery in New York City.

We are making an effort to offer some greater context to Woodward's early work. One of those facets is his interest in making Illuminations. It is an art form with a long history and tradition tied to the undercurrect of Woodward's faith and aspirations. It is important not to underestimate how powerful its draw is to him. It is primordial in its origin.

This painting's story is almost comically tragic. It is a personal favorite of RSW's. Its buyer dies just days before its comple-tion. It exhibits at a show with another painting of a familiar subject by a fri-end of Woodward's that gets more attention as well as RSW's ire. It is the first incident of RSW's defense of his brand from being co-opted by others.

In the first of what will be 3 parts, we introduce to you the evolution of Woodward's well-known and highly recogizable Window Pictures Paintings. Part I is primarily a build up, revealing the first "window" drawing we know of and how the letter that accompanies it holds many of the traits and values RSW will incorporate into his Window Picture Paintings nearly twenty years later. But that is not all! We will share with you who we believe is their inspiration and how she literally and later figuratively appears in the original paintings perhaps as a tribute to her if only unconsciously so. We will also connect RSW's early commercial work and intimate Redgate paintings as the being precursor to the art form.

When we heard that the Deerfield Academy was going to level the "little brown house" on Albany Street we took another look at this page and introduce the artist romantic tendencies.

We've added new clippings and some editorial commentary.

This is an important scene for Woodward only we are not entirely sure why. We suspect it holds an underlying poetic irony, a tragic one. Its story has prompted us to begin an essay exploring its mysteries but for now... enjoy our page update featuring Jeanette Matthews beautiful reviews.

In this story, we call Woodward out on being misleading. He claims "it never sold" but the truth is that he never found the right home for what maybe one of the most celebrated and beloved paintings in his entire oeuvre. Read the story of this award-winning painting and see if you agree...

Woodward made a num-ber of small errors in his Painting Diary. He didn't start the diary until the early 1940s and so a lot of it was from memory. In regard to this painting, however, he may have made his most egregious mistake. It was the wrong painting entirely! More surprising is who OWNS this painting.

It all adds up... the size matches, where it exhibited matches, and the good fortune of discovering a photograph from the 1928 exhibit where this painting is hung next to a known 40" x 50" painting is all we needed to prove this painting is the one on the cover of Country Life Magazine.

We have received a few newly discovered paint-ings through their owners who graciously send us their pictures. This signed but unnamed painting is an early 1920s oil on canvas. It is very unique in that it shows a slop-ing field being hayed and you can just make out the work horses and cart use to do it.

In our greatest indulg-ence yet, we explore what this painting could possibly be since we have no image of it. Furthermore, we also speculate on the sym-bolism that may be ap-pealing to Woodward that holds great meaning to the artist. It is part of our effort to explore a more intimate look inside his interest.

Our work in processing all of the news clippings and articles in Woodward's scrapbook is producing opportunities to reveal some things about paintings for which we have no images. This is a great example, and we offer two insights of import to its name and month.

More on our effort to get all the article in RSW's scrapbooks to the web-site, here we paid special attention to this chalk drawing. Jeanette Matt-hews of the Springfield Republican is a great art reviewer and one of our favorites. Note what she says about this painting...

We are making every effort to update many of the Scrapbook pages originated by Dr. Purinton. Here we add some new perspectives on Miss Mabel touting her as one of Woodward's best customers despite her limited resources. Something RSW's greatly appreciated.

We had the great plea-sure to be invited to take new pictures of this un-named and unsigned painting. There is a ques-tion as to if it is a finished piece. There are missing details RSW would have normally filled in. It was sold after his death by his family.

You may have already seen this painting of Woodward's Hiram Woodward Place barn and yard just after a snow storm because it appear-ed as the featured art-work for the month of February in this year's Buckland Historical Society's calendar.

If you want to know how special a painting was to Woodward- look at where he exhibited it. In one of the best examples of a painting being over-looked, this is it. This page best illustrates how important our work to fully vet and add all the in-formation we have on where a painting hung.