This website is a tribute to the life and artwork of Western Massachusetts artist Robert Strong Woodward (1885 -1957).
SCROLL DOWN OR CLICK LINK TO KEEP CURRENT WITH OUR   Monthly Updates!


The 2025 Calendar,
Buckland Hills, to benefit the
Buckland Historical Society's
annual fund raising effort
IS NOW on sale. In this 18th year of producing the
calendar it is a tribute to the artist's beloved home.


CLICK HERE OR ON THE PICTURE TO PREVIEW 2025 OR...

Current Announcements


  The 2025 Calendars
Have Been Delivered
   To Locale Stores!

  The 2025 Calendars have been picked up from the printers and have been delivered to local vendors, and are ready for sale. It will not be too much longer for the tools that allow you to order them online operational. Keep checking back with us or the Buckland Historical Society website.


New England Drama, 1930: The February 2025 artwork
1930 Gold Medal Prize, Boston's Tercentennial Exhibition

  You can find the calendars locally at the following stores:

The Buckland Public Library
   30 Upper Street
   Buckland, MA

Boswell's Books
   10 Bridge Street
   Shelburne Falls, MA

Nancy L. Dole Books
& Ephemera

   20 State Street
   Shelburne Falls, MA

Andy's & The Oak Shoppe
   352 Deerfield Street
   Greenfield, MA


  The theme for this year's annual Woodward calendar to benefit the Buckland Historical Society is 'the Hills of Buck-land.' We cannot say he painted every hill in the small town, but 10 of the 12 named hills within its borders appear in this, the 18th issue of the calendar series.

  The demand for this year's calendar has been very high and so we encourage you to not wait too long before you get yours.


 

Getting the Most
     Out of an Exhibit

The SVAA 1941 Program Cover

  The Southern Vermont Artist Association, Inc. (SVAA) was one of Woodward's most profitable. It also shows his business acumen and how he targeted his product to the market. When we found ourselves auditing the sixteen programs in our collection, what stood out the most was just how many of the paintings did not exhibit anywhere else that we have a record of suggesting they most likely sold at the exhibit. Not only that, from the names of the 15 new discover-ies we made, most were distinctly Vermont mountain subjects specifically targeting the summering New Yorkers who frequented the area and visited the event. Here is how important the SVAA was; the dean of NYC art critics, Royal Cortissoz, frequently reviewed the show! See our updates below for more...


Brian Charles Miller,
Website Content Director

Monthly Featured Artwork from our 2024 Calendar: Mountain Meadow

The Lone Tree
This painting by Robert Strong Woodward, The Lone Tree is the November view in the 2024 Buckland Historical Society Woodward Calendar.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH ON WOODWARD:


"BEGINNING his career as an academic painter of picturesque landscapes, Robert Strong Woodward has developed his talents to such good purpose
that in the latest pictures from his brush... He remains devoted to academic
law and order and his eye is still quick to catch the note of picturesquerie
in the scenes he paints..."

Malcolm Vaughn, New York American, February 9, 1935





Website's Key Features




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.






Woodward's Second Love...

Not only known for his landscape paintings, Woodward had a pas-sion for the restoration and preservation of aging buildings. In his life as a professional artist, he took an unused old diary shed and converted it to his first studio, Redgate. He then purchased an abandoned farm, the old Hiram Woodward Place, and restored it to a show piece of old New England. He then purchased an old mill (Boehmer's Mill) nearby and returned it to its former glory. After a tragic fire burned Hiram in 1934, he purchased another abandon farm, the Southwick Place featuring its early 19th century blacksmith shop into a model of New England tradition that appears today as it did when he lived there... His studios are a reflection of his values.







The Artwork Galleries

The galleries consist of nearly 800 known works of art created by Woodward. We have some form of an image for approximately 75% of them! The galleries are organized in two ways. The first is the Theme Gallery, sorted into 25 categories. The second is alphabetical, making up 8 separate galleries plus a gallery of artwork RSW didn't name or we do not have a name for at this time. Plus, visit our Complete Works List and surf the website from there!

In addition to the artwork, when available, we provide additional notes and background related to the artwork, as well as, links to related paintings or locations for a richer experience and connection to the area.






Our Recollections Scrapbook

The Recollections Scrapbook is a collect-ion of personal ac-counts from people who either knew Wood-ward personally or related to us an experi-ence they have had related to Woodward. A number of the stories told come from this website's originator, Mark Purinton (seen in picture to the left with Woodward), who started working for Woodward as a boy

.




Painting Stories Scrapbook

This is our "story behind the paintings" collection. It includes some of Wood-ward's favorite subjects, such as, his neighbor Harrison Keach's Farm, the Halifax (VT) House and the North Window of his Southwick studio. There is also Charlemont Bridge artwork before the bridge was destroyed in the hurricane of 1938 and Marlboro Church, part of a "church series" Woodward was commissioned for by industrialist Francis P. Garvin before his death.





Recent Website Updates

OUR CURRENT PROJECT MISSION:
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 Woodward's life we have neglected to give their due. We 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.


Unfortunately, this mission has been delayed due to personal health issue with Brian's parents which he must attend to, however, he works on it every chance he gets.

UPDATE: November 01, 2024
ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER... My monthly updates all have a common thread. It is the surprising coincidences that lead us on our path to the growth and development of this website. Every time I wonder what I will do next, and believe me when I say that my "to do" list is longer than my arm, the Cosmos have a completely different idea. It takes great faith to follow where some mysterious, yet benevolent, power takes you.

This month's collision with fate began when an owner of a couple pastels reached out to me with pictures. Both were names we did not have in our records. This is not unusual for chalk drawings. Woodward did not keep a record of them and often made them as gifts for people who let him paint from their yard or of their barn. He made them quickly as well, often using them as the sketches in color of what would become an oil painting.

It was also that the original owner was, the Artist's best customer, Adaline Frelinghuysen. Mr. Frelinghuysen sometimes would write Woodward and ask him to make something for his wife as a gift, so these two paintings could have been gifts to her that never exhibited. However, one of the paintings was the Beech Tree which raised big questions for me. What was Mrs. Frelinghuysen doing with a Beech Tree painting? She almost exclusively bought Vermont-theme pieces. I better double check this and make sure this didn't exhibit at Manchester. I check our records. It is not listed there, so I decide to go to the programs themselves and check what we have. Of 16 years of programs we have in our collection, we found 15 previously unknown paintings-- seven of them were oils which really blew my mind because we do not have one single painting diary entry on any of them. The rest of the story is found in the pages of our updates.

BCM

October 2024 NEW PIC

Proud Elm

You are going to have to scroll to see this new picture of this much loved painting. Its extreme aspect ratio makes it one of the most rectangular paintings in the artist's oeuvre but it is also an upright painting meaning it is tall- very tall. Woodward obviously liked Elm trees. He painted them several times including it in the painting names, Wide Spreading Elm, Dooryard Elm, The Hitchcock Elm and this piece, which was painted in historic old Deerfield area, as was the Hitchcock Elm.

How grateful are we to have these elms captured for history after the Dutch Elm disease ravaged the world of these majestic and glorious trees, except for a small town in Maine, Castine, where 300 American Elms survive to this day. It sounds like it is worth a visit.


Oct. 2024 NEW PASTEL

Under the November Sky

This newly discovered pastel painting was the catalyst to our audit of all of the exhibit programs we have on record. First was the surprise that Mrs. Frelinghuysen bought a Beech Tree painting when, with just a few exceptions, she mostly purchased Vermont specific subjects. So we went looking in the programs to see if this one was missed, we found 20 missing names! Moreover, this pastel was not found in any of the SVAA programs, however, we do have one missing year out of 17 and that is 1936.


Oct. 2024 NEW PASTEL

From the Pasture Top in June

Similar to Under the November Sky, this pastel was purchased by Mrs. Frelinghuysen, by far Woodward's best customer. Second place is a distant, distant second by as much as 4 times. Most of her purchases were pastels we believe, because she held the medium in high esteem. Her mother, Louisine Havemeyer, who was close friends with renown American artist, Mary Cassatt, who along with her boyfriend Edgar Dugas, did great things with pastel and were well known for them.


October 2024 NEW IMAGE

Silver Clouds and Haystack

We have had a picture of this pastel painting for a couple of years now but the glare from the glass over the painting was so distracting we deemed it unusable. However, re-cently we have develop-ed a technique to reduce the glare in pictures of paintings. It is tedious and takes numerous cyc-les of processing but we find that in the end it is worth it... You can still make out some of the features of the room it hangs, but now you can also see the painting itself without straining to ignore the glare.


October 2024 NEW PAGES

Below are 5 of 20 newly discovered painting names found in an audit of Woodward's personal collection of Southern Vermont Artists Associ-ation exhibit programs not originally included in the Deerfield Academy's 1970 catalog of Wood-ward's work.


3- Oils

- Long Years Have Passed
- Grace of Age
- Bottles and Snow

2- Pastels

- Mount Equinox from
  Sunderland

- Mount Stratton from Peru
Oct. 2024 JOURNEYING

Maple Sugaring   & Steaming Sugar House

We will call this "Brian and Larch's Excellent Adventure!" One day in the Buckland area with time to kill, the two set out to locate and see if they could find the rem-nant of the old Keach sugar house that appear-ed to hang precariously on a steep slope on Koo-chuag (Snow) Mountain.

A hundred years after the artist painted these paint-ings we found, what we believe is its exact loca-tion and took pictures with some new inform-ation.


October 2024 CORRECTED

The Sugar House

For years, it was assumed that this was an interior painting much like In The Sugar House, however, it is no longer believed to be so. We now believe this painting is the EXTERIOR of the Gray Sugar House RSW was making when it got too cold and windy to paint outside and he was carried inside to warm up. That, of course, led to him making the pastel that would become the oil mentioned above.


October 2024 UPDATED

In The Sugar House

Brian and Larch are getting pretty good at being able to get the most out of an old photograph and this is a good example. When Brian learned the pic we have is from an old photo taken in the early 1980s, he realized the problem with the picture was that it was over saturated with yellow from the room's lighting. He adjusted the saturation reducing the yellow to get a better representation and showed it to Larch. Larch took it further (to show Brian up, he believes) and worked on it some more to bring out the true reds, blues and purples. While it is still a 1980s picture and the best we have. It now looks much more like the original chalk drawing.


Sept. 2024 NEW PAGE

The Church at Bennington, Vermont

This page has been so long over due. We have known for some time now that the Bennington Church oil painting had a sibling chalk drawing but no page was ever made for it. We offer a theory as to why the chalk was made but fail to point out that the pastels often give RSW an accurate rendering of the colors he will replicate in oil. It is a useful tool.


Sept. 2024 NEW FINDS

Beside the Road in Dover

The first of three new pastel painting discoveries. From its name we have a good idea what painting it is related to and where it exhibited - the Southern Vermont Artist Association (SVAA).

Near the Seventh

This discovery surprised us a bit. It was seen in the 1942 exhibit program for the SVAA, and while we know there is a painting that once hung in the Equinox Golf Club's dinning room of the ninth hole. We did not, however, know about this chalk drawing.

Under the November Sky

This chalk drawing is said to be of the Beech Tree in Heath. We are hoping for some pictures soon. We can't wait to see this piece painted in his favorite month.


Sept. 2024 NEW INFO

October (1944)

In Woodward's diary comments, he claims this painting never left the studio until it was sold. However, this is contrary to the facts and it seems inexplicable as to why this would be. This painting hung, alone on its own wall,in a place of honor in a special exhibit in Springfield in Novem-ber 1944 that also featur-ed four other of the country's best painters. The issue may stem from the article we discover-ed... they botched Woodward's name! His middle name no less.

Also, we are finding more and more errors and omissions regarding the 1940s in the artist's painting diary that we have a theory about and will lead to an essay.


Sept. 2024 NEW INFO

Snowing on the Hill

Add this painting to award winners! Again from an article we trans-cribed this week, we learn that this painting, which once hung in the London Embassy, is also an Award Winner. It won an Honorable Mention award at the 1941 annual Jordan Marsh Co. event. Again, not mentioned in his painting diary entry and inexplicably, the program for that year is missing from our collec-tion. We have added it to the Awards Gallery and updated the page to add the honor.

Again, this is another example of Woodward's painting diary falling just short on important information.


Sept. 2024 UPDATED

Marlboro Meeting House Library, Bookplate

This page was updated because it was next in line in our audit project. Coinciding with the audit we had located an invit-ation to the re-dedication of East Poultney Church. Woodward was a popular guy with Vermont church-es in 1937. He has been commissioned by Francis P. Garvan to painting historic, architecturally and historical, churches. This was prompted by RSW's painting, Enduring New England, that has the original Marlboro Me-eting House building. It burned down the next year and its architect for the new meeting house used RSW's painting to help in his design and this bookplate honors his contribution.


Sept. 2024 NEW PIC

Unnamed: Good Neighbors

We cannot even begin to explain how this new image of an unnamed painting got lost in the mix of things, but we have had it for at least a year. A new page was made for it and it simply fell through the cracks.

It is a unique painting made from a perspective not seen in any other canvas. It gives a terrific look of the landscape between Southwick and its neighbor to the north. RSW made numerous paintings of a similar scene but did so from his studio's artists north win-dow. In this piece, shows the gully separating the properties with Holsteins grazing on its slopes.


Sept. 2024 UPDATED

Majestic New Hampshire Magic

This page got updated as part of our ongoing audit and update of the website. Not all updates make this list. This canvas did for a couple of reasons, the first being, it is such a unique brush-style for the artist to use. It is actually very similar to the celebrated painting also in this monthly update, Snowing on the Hill, and minimalist for the artist known for his detail. It is very refreshing. We ALSO managed to pinpoint the location from where RSW positioned himself to make it.


07-27-2024 REVELATIONS

Keach's Stove &
Mrs. Keach's Front Porch

Talk about two paintings having very different fortunes. Woodward con-sidered both among his masterpieces, yet one ended up never being sold and remaining in his personal collection. The other is one of his most traveled, recognized, and one of the most frequent-ly mentioned in news-papers at the shows it appears. It ends up in the collection of a famous person and eventually a museum. But the two paintings are #1 and #2 of the most exhibited Keach Farm-themed paintings, as well as, focused on the family home and NOT the farm.

The update of these two pages is a by-product of our work on the Keach barn interior paintings as we are in the midst of doing a complete ac-counting of the Keach-themed paintings.


07-26-2024 INSIDE THE BARN UPDATES

In the Old Barn, 1921

The first of six, maybe seven painting's of the Keach barn interior. It is a pastel painting the artist called chalk drawings.


Old Rafters, 1925

The second Keach barn interior painting is the largest and went into the private collection of a famous person in Boston. It is also the painting by which the next, smaller version, was made.


New Hay, 1926,'27

A smaller version of Old Rafters, this painting never exhibited and was kept by the artist in his personal collection. The reasons are unknown to us.


07-23-2024 BIG DISCOVERY

Dusty Rafters, 1929

We believe this was made specifically for the Littlecote exhibit which was his first in Eastern New York and the new Myles Standish Hotel art gallery in Boston that followed. Another first, the Standish event would be the first of many shows at the hotel.

Of note, however, is that we needed to strike the entirety of Woodward's diary comments for this painting which he mistook for Old Rafters. We have found errors in the diary as we go through this process but for him to forget a painting equally as important to the one he is mistaking it for is a big surprise, even to us.


07-22-2024 MORE INSIDE THE BARN

In Keach's Barn, 1931

This pastel painting appears to have been made specifically for the show it appears, the 1931 Tryon Gallery Exhibit at Smith College. Much like the 1929 Pychon event where the artist featured chalk drawings with their oil counterparts. This piece hung with Dusty Rafters at Smith.

Inside the Barn, 1942

Nine years later this painting appears seem-ingly out of nowhere to hang at the Grand Cen-tral Art Gallery in New York City and Woodward makes no record of it in his diary.


Inside the Old Barn, ?

This name/painting is as of now still unconfirmed.


07-22-2024 PICS ADDED

June Brook

Part of our brief J Gallery audit, it was the only artwork page in need of updating as the other four had been done prior to getting to the gallery. Nonetheless, we offer you a treat by adding pictures to the page showing what we believe to be the "falls" he painted in this interior woods painting.


07-19-2024 UPDATED

Into the Winter Woods

Not only did we have this page listed in the wrong order, alphabetically, on the gallery page (we corrected it) but we believe there is enough evidence to conclude that this painting is not the same as the previously unnamed but now given a name by its owner Into the Woods.


07-17-2024 UPDATED

Keach's Barn in Spring

There are two seasons for "haying time" and neither are in the Spring, yet the Spring was a pop-ular season for Wood-ward to paint at the Keach farm, all of which are exteriors. While we do not have a picture of this painting we offer you several options and even make one inconclusive suggestion of a strong possibility with what we feel is MORE than a coincidence.


07-15-2024 UPDATED

The Last of Winter & New England in November

These two paintings were included in our accounting of the Keach farm paintings. It turns out that both paintings were also popular with the reviewers. Last of Winter was called "arresting" by critic Royal Cortizzos, and critic Henry McBride admired all of the "enticing facts" of New England in November, so much so, he chose not to be hyper-critical of it being too much.

We have updated both pages to include the articles associated with these painting, as well as adding more pictures.


07-14-2024 UPDATED PICS

Country Piazza

While examining the most exhibited paintings, this piece which is in the same collection as Keach's Stove, did not exhibit as much as Keach's Stove but it is where it hung that says all you need to know about how important it is, needed a refresher on it picture that had a distracting glare.

We used some of our new editing skills on the old picture and managed to reduce the glare and improve the image.


07-12-2024 UPDATED PICS

The Desk Corner

another painting in the same collection as Country Piazza and Keach's Stove with a terrible glare was corrected using our new editing methods. As of this moment, however, the image of Keach's Stove is the best it is going to get for now. We are working on getting a better image.


07-11-2024 UPDATED PICS

At Sugaring Time

Back in January all of the attention was on the recently restored When Drifts Melt Fast. This painting is its sibling but facing down the steep hill on the road. It was also plagued with a terrible glare and we were able to reduce it without altering the color and look of the painting's true tones. We also updated the page.


06-05-2024 NEW GALLERY!

"Late Summer"

This new gallery's idea was inspired, in part, by our "In November" gal-lery. The concept behind it is that Woodward was particularly interested in the moments just after the peak and before the impending change. We were not sure what would come of it. It really turned out more surprising than we could have imagined- 90 paintings making it one of the largest theme galleries on the website.

It is not perfect. We had to make some educated guesses. One of the key factors was, 'when did it exhibit?' If it hung at the So. Vermont Artist Assoc. in mid-August, it was not a late summer scene. If it exhibited in December, January, February or March thereafter- it was late summer.


06-01-2024 NEW PICS

At Peace

This is embarrassing, but we have had a terrible picture of this painting on the website unnecessarily for so many years. That has been corrected.


The Peace of Years

Mining for a better image of this painting was the product of the "Late Sum-mer" gallery and our new found ways to locate Dr. Mark's original pictures, along with better methods of image editing. We wish we had a color image. It was a fav of the artist.


Dooryard Elm

This is still a poor image because the original is poor, however, we got hold of its original scan and worked on it a bit. Hopefully, it helps give you a better sense of this "Late Summer" scene.


05-28-2024 NEW PICS

Out of The Past

Again, another "Late Summer" scene, the first in a series of 3, maybe 4, similar paintings. It is still a blurry sepia, but that is because the negative we have is blurry. However, there was once a crisp negative of this painting because it was used twice in print and we included those images for you.


The Proud Elm

More of the same here... we got our hands on a better image of this sepia and made it better with our new techniques.


The Three Chimneys

This pastel version of The Proud Elm also got an upgrade in quality with a more accurate color balance in a better high resolution.


05-22-2024 NEW PIC/ UPDATE

Sugaring

The image of this painting, unfortunately is a copy of a copy. It was taken from an old faded photograph and up to now there was no way to get a higher resolution out of it. While the image is still poor you will clearly make out the sugar-shack seemingly located in the sugarbush. We had to do some homework as to the difference between a sugar grove and a sugar bush


In The Sugar Bush

It was our audit of this page that led us to the previous artwork above. Its name gave us a different picture in our heads than the articles describing it. This page was updated to included the definition of a sugar bush and some links.


05-15-2024 UPDATED

Inside the Old Barn

This page was updated by our audit. It appears to be one of as many as six paintings inside the Keach barn; this painting being one of the earliest.


In The Spring

This painting was also part of our audit and while we did not need to make many changes, we included it here to draw your attention to what RSW said was, "One of my most perfect windows," along with an early color picture taken by his friend of the painting next to the arranged window!


The Old Yellow House; Dover

This page was very outdated. We updated it to include RSW's best customer, Adaline Frelinghuysen.


04-30-2024 ANOTHER ONE!

Mountain Meadow

Mislabeled as a chalk from the very beginning of the website. This paint-ing has been proven not only to be an oil but it is the painting we identified as New England in October just last month. It would make it the fourth painting in a series we thought stopped at three.



New England in October

Lesson learned... there was one discrepancy when we linked a color picture to this painting name. Its current owner had done their won homework and traced the provenance back to its original buyer which dif-fered from the one RSW gives. Since we know of no example of RSW ever making such a mistake- we doubted the owner to our own embarrassment.


04-29-2024 CHANGES MADE

The Road Home

This painting and the one listed below have similar issue to that of Mountain Meadow and its sibling. It was also mislabeled a chalk drawing since the start of the website. Only for these two paintings, it is also likely that they are the same painting because we do not have the information we have for the other group. It complicates the matter that the difference is two transposed words.


The Home Road

Page undated to reflect the info above.


04-27-2024 NEW PIC

Unnamed: Along a Hill Road

We found this new image in website founder Dr. Mark's copious volume of file folders. The image is a higher resolution than the previous but you will see that the problem with quality was not just the low-res image. This painting might be one of the artist earliest "hill road" pieces. Also found with the old sepia are two photos of the luxurious room it once hung. It is a great treat, enjoy!

The painting is still listed as unnamed as we work to confirm our suspicions.


04-24-2024 NEW PICS

Dooryard Elm

As we always promise, we do all we can to get the best possible pictures of Woodward's work. It is not always possible. We publish what we have primarily to locate the paintings. Countless painting owners have reached out to supply new pics. While still not perfect, this pic is better than the previous.



The Little Guest House Court

Another find from the depth of Dr. Mark's records and it is much better than the previous.


04-21-2024 NEW PIC

Unnamed: The Keach Farmyard, 1928

We are not even a third of the way through web-site founder, Dr. Mark's file folders and we have caught so many trea-sures. This pic we grab-bed from a torn photo-graph of someone's home. We believe it was taken by RSW friend, F. Earl Williams. It is not the best image, BUT, one can clearly see that it is of what RSW called "the farmyard" along side of the "little red barn" from a perspective unlike any other painting of the same subject.


04-17-2024 NEW PICS

Town Farm in May

As much as we love redundancy, we have been trying to eliminate having double artwork pages for the same paint-ing. Usually, this results from the painting's name being changed later either by Woodward, for whatever reason or be-cause the owner has a name they like. None-theless, for this artwork we will two pages for the piece, for now...


New England Memories

... the new picture while better is still not great. However, this one has much better color bal-ance than the previous one.


04-15-2024 NEW PIC

In the Sugar House

This image is the same as the previous one, only with a much higher resol-ution. The biggest ob-stacle with the new web-site (2009) is that all of the original scans of let-ters A through I, were cor-rupted in their original PowerPoint slides made by Dr. Mark (2002). We have been trying to re-cover them somehow for years. But there may be a light at the end of this tunnel. We are finding some of the lost prints in Dr. Mark's file folders and we just located a cashe of old CDs!!! Cross your fingers.


04-12-2024 NEW PICS

Unnamed: Great Resilience

Not only did we find a new better picture in Dr. Mark's files of this painting we have known of since the website's beginnings. We found a way to edit it so that we can now tell you what it is, if not what its name is.


04-08-2024 UPDATED PAGE

In The Afternoon Sun

A new high resolution sepia print image along with new thoughts as to why this is only one of no more than a handful of chalk drawings sepias.

It was also updated as part of our website audit where we are now in the "I" gallery, as is the one listed below...


In The Hills

This page was updated as part of the website audit we are performing.


04-07-2024 NEW PIC

In the August Sun

Coincidentally enough, just a day or two after we did an audit of this page did someone email us a photograph of this painting signed and given as a gift by the artist! We have added the picture and provided some information as to the connection of the gift's recipient and the artist.


03-24-2024 UPDATED

In October Hills

The next painting on the list for our audit turned out to be much more than we expected. This is the first of 3 very similar com-posite paintings made by Woodward between the winter of 1942 and some-time in late 1944. All three paintings are differ-ent sizes. Each one has tiny variations and differ-ences in the scenes that prompted us to update a total of 5 web pages which led to the discovery of two new images as well as the swapping of names of two images we incorrectly labelled years ago.


03-31-2024 UPDATED

Through October Hills

The second painting of this series of similar scenes put together by Woodward using two other paintings was intended for the same customer as the first and it was still not sold. Woodward drastically changed the perspective. He altered both the tree grouping to the left and stonewall on the right for a more dramatic effect.

However, we had used the wrong image to identify this painting because of how similar it is to the THIRD painting of the same scene with a slightly different perspect-ive and size! RSW gives us just enough inform-ation on each painting for us to put it all together.


04-06-2024 UPDATED

Wind'll Blow Hill

Researching the issue above we found a new and better sepia image swapping it out with the old one.


Just After Haying Time

Minor updates were made and added.




New England in October

The third and more tempered painting of Woodward's composite series using the farm from Just After Haying Time and the road of Wind'll Blow Hill to paint this very romantic scene. It was not until we did an overlay of the two images we had of these painting did we discover we had them mixed up according to RSW's painting diary.


03-27-2024 NEW PAGE

In Old Boston, oil, 27"x 30"

There has always been confusion surrounding this painting that border-ed on an existential crisis- it is or is it not a painting? Well, we have confirmed that it is. Not only that, we sort out the whole mess that is Woodward's Bos-ton paintings to learn that there are 6 Old Boston paintings, of 2 different scenes all exhibiting between 1931 and '35.


Old Boston, oil, 40"x 50"

This painting is one of 3 of the same scene seen in the chalk drawing by the same name, In Old Boston. This was estab-lished after discovering this piece hung with the pastel at the Mt. Holyoke College event in 1931.


04-03-2024 UPDATED

In Old Boston, Chalk

Three paintings, 2 oils and this chalk, all with basically the same name, does not make it easy on us to figure out what is what in regard to the Boston paintings but thank goodness RSW kept this pastel for himself. Otherwise we would have no idea what there is a second scene the artist also painted in oil as well.


In Old Boston, oil, 36"x 42"

This page was updated to reflect the new inform-ation established by the exhibition list. However, we did add a cool feature illustrating an image of the scene from In Old Boston, chalk, to make a list of all of the art work in the order we believe they were made and identify-ing what is the subject of the painting- - neighbor-hood or oyster house.


01-04-2024 RESTORED!

When Drifts Melt Fast

This painting owned by the estate has deterior-ated so much over the past decade it was pack-ed and stored until we could get it restored. One of the artist most cele-brated paintings, it was never sold and the rea-son may very well have been because RSW knew it would not last the test of time.

We have new pictures and illustrations that demonstrate the evolu-tion of this painting from a 40" x 50" to its current size of 24" x 36" along with before and after images.


01-11-2024 QUESTIONS

In Apple Blossom Time

A painting name we have no image for and only one record of (a news-paper article) comes into question. Is it really a painting or was the name mistaken for another painting omitted from the article? While we could not come to any answer with confidence, the questions tell an interest-ing story that links two paintings made at the same location, roughly at the same time- one with an unquestioned name and the other, nameless. The nameless one could very well be the painting by this name only we have no way of confirm-ing it.


01-18-2024 NEW IMAGE

Up the Winter Valley

We recently came across a picture of this painting's sepia print that is better than the one we were using. It was found in the pictures Larch took during his visit to the Smithsonian a couple of years back. It was found in the "Harold Grieve" papers of Woodward's collection.

We have updated the pictures, including a never before used photograph of Woodward at his desk taken by his friend F. Earl Williams, also in the Smithsonian. We also link the scene to two other paintings.


01-25-2024 SPECIAL ITEM

In November

As part of our artwork page audits we are also re-thinking the inform-ation we have for each piece and connecting it with other related pieces. For this 1946 painting, sold to the artist dear friend Ethel Dow, the related piece is a sketch made of the same scene sometime in the mid-1930s. RSW mentions in his painting diary that Ethel had been saving for several years to buy a painting and that this one, "seemed to hold her choice of 'everything'," and we are wondering if he had arranged this all intentionally? Read the story and see how we put a few things together indicating a poetic fate.


01-31-2024 OTHERS

In Early March

This page has been reorganized and updated, however, there is now a question as to here the name came from because a label on the stretcher has a different name.


In Keach's Barn

A painting name with no image, but not hard to surmise the subject and scene of the painting we suspect might have been made special for Wood-ward's first Smith College exhibition.


In New England

Another painting name with no image. Still, we offer some possibilities of what the subject of this chalk drawing may be...


11-11-2023 NEW GALLERY

Award Winners Gallery

The moment the idea came to us we realized it was necessary, for context, to assemble an image gallery solely devoted to Woodward's award winning paintings. There are twenty that we know of in his 37 year career. Two paintings won two awards each making it actually 18 total paintings. We pictures of 18 of the winners, and one is an image of a smaller version of the original. We also include the 3 paintings invited to 3 World Fairs as well as the four paintings to hang at the 1938 International Rotary Convention held in Boston.


11-11-2023 MOST AWARDED

Out the North Window

One of only two multiple prize winning paintings by Woodward, this particular one held pretty high ex-pectation from the artist. In his painting diary he referred to his Honorable Mention prize at the Jordan Marsh show as "miserable" and made NO mention whatsoever of his First Prize for Best Still Life at the annual Ogunquit, Maine, exhib-ition. Oqunquit and Jordan Marsh are two of maybe just a handful of the most esteemed events in New England attracting the best of the best artist regionally and nationally. To receive any prize from either is a high and esteemed honor.


11-11-2023 OTHERS...

New England Heritage

We have added new in-formation concerning the 1932 Boston Art Club ex-hibition. An article by art critic Alice Lawton offers new context to the im-portance of Woodward's 2nd prize.


New England Origins

The other double prize winning painting doesn't offer much in new inform-ation but deserves a fresh look.


March Light

A quick search of the buyer of this prize winning painting unearth yet another prominent owner whose name and occupation Woodward incorrectly cited in his painting diary. We made the correction and added new material to the page.


11-11-2023 IDENTIFIED

June Corn

It has never been known what painting won 2nd Prize and the 1937 Albany Institute of History & Art event. Our research has revealed it was this painting. Not only that, Woodward was the only non-Hudson Valley artist invited to the show which was also exclusively held for artist who qualified for the The WPA Federal Art Project. We know Woodward qualified, however, to this day we do not know what he did with the grant, if anything.


11-04-2023 NEW PICS

"Gold"

We had the great pleas-ure to visit the So. Ver-mont Art Center (SVAC) in Manchester, VT. They are in possession of an early Woodward painting and the SVAC's Exhibi-tions Manager Alison Crites extended us the courtesy of pulling it out of storage for us to see and photograph. We learned some puzzling things that has left us in a bind as to what to do about it which is a good problem to have.

Thank you so much to Ms. Crites, the SVAC, and its accommodating and friendly staff!


10-26-2023 CORRECTIONS

1. The Village in Spring
2. April in North Hadley
3. The Village In April &
4. April in the Village

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...


10-21-2023 NEW PICS

The Hungry Little Barn

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!


10-18-2023 NEW PICS

Winter Peace

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!


10-15-2023 NEW INFORMATION & UPDATED PAGE

The Silo Paintings: New Silo, In the November Sun, and Unfinished Silo

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.


09-05-2023 NEW PICS

Drying Nets; T Wharf

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.


09-08-2023 NEW PICS

An October Pasture

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.


09-11-2023 NEW PICS

Unnamed: Greylock from Heath


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!


09-15-2023 NEW PICS

Unnamed: Late Summer in Halifax

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.


09-18-2023 NEW PICS

Back of the Village

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.


09-24-2023 NEW PIC

Unnamed: Keach's Drama

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.


09-22-2023 UPDATED

Horizon of Heath

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...


09-21-2023 UPDATED

The Home Road

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.


09-20-2023 UPDATED

Hitchcock Elm

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.


09-20-2023 UPDATED

The Hungry Little Barn

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!


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.


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.

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


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.

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


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.

  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!


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.


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.

We've added new clippings and some editorial commentary.


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...


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.


FOLLOW THIS LINK TO ALL the previous updates from 2021 to 2014...