The 2024 Woodward Calendar has been assembled and is now being prepared for print. Some editorial editing and tweaking will be done but we expect it to be on time. It was a very challenging year. Each year get more challenging. This will be the 17th issue and we have exhausted most of the top quality images without repeat-ing but a handful. We really had just run out of new and orignal ideas. The truth is, as little as three weeks about (today's date: 09-07-23) we had no ideas or theme; that is until fate intervened and inspiration struck. Once we had the concept, it took less than a day to put it together. We hope the you will enjoy it as much as any previous calendar.
As it was with last month's featured artwork, this month's painting, New
England con-nects to a project we have been working on for months and trying to publish. The subject is Woodward and the New Eng-land
church which he is increasingly becoming assoc-iated. As we introduce in our painting story for
The Heart of New England in the update section below, is that it is not the church in the religous sense but rather the village center
as the center of community. One should not try to put the artist in too small a box or make him one or two dimensional. He is far more complex than
most realize. Nearly every painting of architecture (home, barn, or church) he made, that people find "charming" also holds subtle and insightful social
commentary. Some are scath-ing commentaries on neglect, others with just plain apathy, while with a sympathetic eye he paints with dignity, love and
respect. He has a lot to say if you will only look a little closer.
The project I speak of is the story of the 1937 Garvan Com-mission. Francis P.
Garvan commissioned Woodward to painting a series of historic early American churches and "fine" homes. The commission is the culmination of a
series of fateful events that will inadvert-ently forever link Woodward to the New England church. However, the commission is an utter failure and furthermore
this contract is it may have been sabotaged intentionally by Woodward... and fate inter-venes again and takes it away from him forever.
It is a
powerful story about how uncompromising the artist could be in regard to his brand, as well as how careless he is when he is insincere and how fate and
destiny respond when he uses subterfuge to alter the course. We hope to publish before the end of the month... along with the previous month's mention
of our story about December Farm.
The issue that halted our work last month has been sorted out. We traced the change we made that had an unintended conseq-uence and work on the various projects we are juggling are ready to move forward. The errant change effected over 130 pages on the website and revealed a couple other issues that were also corrected. We appreciate your patience and continued support. ❤
⮜ READ the story in the left hand column about the auspicious
timing of this painting being our feature of this month.
Welcome to RobertStrongWoodward.com! The website is divided into two main features. First is the
Gallery of Woodward's artwork sorted in themes and then alphabetically. There is also the Scrapbook which contains
collections of stories, memorabilia and specific citations related to Woodward, his life and achievements. It is at once a tribute and historical record of Woodward
and the life and times from which he drew his inspiration.
From April of 2022 to April of
2023, the website received more than 21,500 unique visits. The most meaningful of these numbers are the eighty-seven percent ( or 18,800+ ), of those
visitors who opened us directly from their browser and not through a search engine.
We do not look at our numbers often because we
would be doing this whether we had one visit a year or a million. This pleased us so very much and we are beyond grateful. It is an increase of 89% since the
last time we looked - 2017. That is a growth rate of nearly 15% a year and we couldn't be more appreciative to have your attention. No pressure though, we're
cool...
Recent Website Updates |
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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.
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In addition to the studio pages, we have been assembling as many as 15 new Scrapbook pages and just as many in the cue 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 Woodward'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.
BCM |
08-27-2023
NEW PASTEL! Where the Stonewall Joins the Ledge 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. |
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09-02-2023
NEW PICS The Lone Tree 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. |
08-15-2023
PAINTING STORY Heart of New England 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. |
06-21-2023
UPDATED The Three Barns 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. |
07-09-2023
UPDATED Opalescent April 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. |
06-28-2023
CORRECTION Gray New England 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. |
06-27-2023
A GOLDEN RULE The Golden Month & The Golden Slope 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. |
06-15-2023
PAINTING STORY Grace of Years 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. |
06-20-2023
SOME CONTEXT Great Faith in God Alone 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. |
01-19-2023
A NEW STORY From a May Pasture 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. |
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05-01-2023
AN ESSAY The Evolution of the Window Picture Painting, Part 1 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. |
06-03-2022
PAGE UPDATE August Shade 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. |
10-18-2022
PAGE UPDATE December Farm 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. |
04-14-2023
A NEW STORY When Drifts Melt Fast 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... |
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03-12-2022
NEW DISCOVERY From My Studio Window 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. |
03-15-2023
CORRECTION The South Window, 1928 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. |
09-17-2022
NEW PAINTING Unnamed: Haying Time in New England 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. |
08-03-2022
EXPERIMENTAL The Chambered Nautilus 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. |
07-06-2022
A NEW STORY An Autumn Song 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. |
04-19-2023
NEW CONTEXT God's Quiet Acre 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... |
01-23-2022
IN TRIBUTE Miss Mabel Raguse 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. |
12-22-2022
NEW PICS Unnamed: Guilford Farm; Conway 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. |
07-01-2022
NEW PAINTING Unnamed: Barnyard Blanket 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. |
04-04-2023
ADDED INFO Full Bloom 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. |