None.
This feels like a much loved painting and yet, inexplicably there is not a diary entry for it.
How is it that we come to this judgment? Vose, Woodward's new Boston agent as of 1936 holds it intermittently
for 3 years, in its gallery and most certainly sending it around the country as well. (we just do not have a record
of where, but most likely Dallas, TX, Clearwater, FL, Springville, UT, etc.) It also hangs in the gallery of his New York
City representative, the Grand Central Galleries, and then the Williston Academy which is associated with his
beloved cousin, poet and, educator Flora White.
You might be saying to yourself, "Well it didn't sell very quickly.." but we do not think it was really for sale- - another
trait of Woodward's very favorite paintings. It was only available to museums, collectors, or friends.
Finally, his close friend, educator, amateur photographer and, one of the ONLY reason we have pictures of anything,
F. Earl Williams arranged the photo
below using this painting. This oversight feels equally as puzzling as the omission of a diary entry for
December Farm. SEE PHOTOGRAPH BELOW
①Woodward is only in his Southwick Home & Studio about a year when this painting first exhibits. The scene is his first fall in the home and studio. Yet it is far beyond the peak of the foliage, suggesting to us that this could be a November painting. November may possibly be Woodward's favorite month for poetic reasons. It is widely considered the month of retirement or repose; an "in-between" place, in a liminal sense, like twilight or an equinox- a threshold or transitional phase. If you like wordplay, the Merriam Webster Dictionary website has a page dedicated to the "in-between."
②It is obviously painted from his artist north window but it is not a window painting. At this
time, his months in the new studio, he has only made one Window Picture
for the studio. From the North Window was painted some
time shortly after he moved in after March 9th, 1935. From the North Window exhibited the next month and
again in May of 1935. We imagine it was his way of christening the new studio.
However, he would not start
painting window paintings from the Southwick studio until 1937. There are other paintings Woodward made from the studio's
balcony, and driveway of his surroundings. There are even paintings made from his bedroom windows. The landscape
surrounding Southwick was exceptionally scenic.
The Southwick Studio would also be his first to be on a hill. His other
previous studios, Redgate and
the Hiram Woodward Place would be in
the valley that runs along the Clesson river to where it meets the Deerfield River.