Featured Artwork: April at Keach's Farm

Unnamed: Keach's Drama

"Prior to 1926. Broad spring panorama of Keach's farm and valley made from the upper pasture slope above their house. Owned by Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. Lee of Manchester, Vermont."

Editor's Note:

The painting to the right is an old picture from the May 1970, Hilson Gallery Exhibition at the Deerfield Academy organized by the the school's American Studies Group. The painting can be found at the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester, Vermont. It is a winter scene of the Keach farm somewhat similar to Woodward's 1930 Gold Medal winning painting of the Toy farm on Putt's Hill, New England Drama. The winter painting does not quite match the descriptions given in the reviews below and so we are fairly certain it is NOT April at Keach's Farm. You would see some snow melt and thawing. See Between Winter and Spring for another example of March/April scene from the farm.

A review of the 1928 J.H. Miller Exhibition

Right: Springfield Union, by Jeanette Matthews

"Mr. Woodward has an unusual gift for making a close and vivid picture of distant views seen from high vantage points. April at Keach's [Farm] is such an one..."

Boston Globe review by A.J. Philpott
December 23, 1926.

A quote from A. J. Philpott on this painting:

"This man gets the rugged strength as well as the poetry and color of the New England landscape: this panoramic view of a side-hill stretch of country called April at Keach's Farm. This is a picture that few artists would care to tackle, for it is a big bit of work. But what a glorious picture Mr. Woodward has made of this rolling country with its fields, farmhouses, fences, walls and roads---topographically perfect and knit together in a fine harmony of line and color. This is a splendid painting."

The 1926 Concord Art Association's show:

"Of similar appeal is Robert Strong Woodward's April at Keach's Farm, wherein the color of a Berkshire hillside is seen in a veritable Persian carpet of soft lines and the earth contours are felt with a keenness for every square foot of the scene. Minute observation, governed by a feeling for the view as a whole is the mark of this picture. There is a sense of action in the very brush strokes, as in a landscape by Van Gogh" " To See Article Click Here

This painting came up for sale at The Cooley Gallery in Old Lyme, Conn. in 1998 and sold for $12,500