Featured Artwork: A Clear September Day

RSW's Diary Comments

A Clear September Day - sepia print

"A painting made from a chalk drawing of the same composition and subject, owned by Mr. Ralph Tognarelli. Tangled group of birch trees filled in right half of the canvas, green mowing beyond, over which bands of pasture land, topped by a nearby mountain (back of Shelburne Tower Mountain) all with a brilliant green blue Sept. sky, (almost no clouds) with the most arresting part of the canvas a foreground bank of fall weeds and asters (very colorful) with just the edge of the road showing in the very lower left corner of the canvas. Sold March 19, 1948, to Mr. Gordon Woodward, 14 Elm St. Hatfield, Mass."

Editor's Note:

We are learning, over the years of verifying the information we have for every painting that Woodward's painting diary was mostly made from memory and that it is most inaccurate when it comes to the year something was made. It is most accurate when RSW notes the buyer. Here Woodward cited the year this painting was made as 1945 and this is incorrect because we have a letter to his friend Earl Williams, dated Nov. 22, 1943. In that letter he describes the pastel he just copied from another pastel named September Pastoral which is Mr. Tognarelli's painting referred to in the entry above.

When Autumn Comes, 1943
We believe the pastel above is the "copy" that went to
the Pettises referred to in the letter to F. Earl Williams.

The problem is he says absolutely nothing about this canvas oin the letter. The reason is, he has not made it yet and Mr. Tognarelli is picking up his pastel painting (September Pastoral) the next day! It is the copy of Mr. Tognarelli's painting, When Autumn Comes a month later, as the source used to make the oil canvas above.

Excerpt from a letter to F. Earl Williams from RSW dated, November 22, 1943:

"Last week I made a perfect copy of the Tognarelli chalk September Pastoral -- (which goes to the Tognarelli's tomorrow) so as to have it as a surprise when the Pettises come up in December. I never copied a chalk, in chalk, before. The results were splendid."

Patten District, Shelburne, MA

♦ RSW had made a previous chalk drawing of this scene titled, September Pastoral. Its location is unknown to us at this time and we have no picture of Mr. Tognarelli's painting.

♦♦ This painting was made from its twin chalk draw-ing named, When Autumn Comes. While assuming that September Pastoral is very similar because Woodward alludes to that in his Nov. 22nd letter to Williams. Williams did make a criticism about the "angled tree" to the far right of the painting not being quite right and Woodward later would say to Williams in another letter, "this was quite a job, I put more grace into that right hand angular tree trunk which you criticized and it really was a great improvement," therefore we do think there is a slight different between the Tognarelli piece and the Pettis one.

⮟ Below is a side by side comparison of A Clear September Day and When Autumn Comes. Woodward's pastels are about 15% smaller than the 25" x 30" oil canvases but because we have to size images more for website uniformity, than perspective, side by side comps can be misleading. Here it place them side by side we had to make the oil smaller. Keep that in mind ⮟

Here is a side x side comparison of the oil painting (left) and the chalk drawing When Autumn Comes (right)

♦ The paintings are so alike, if not for the dusting of loose chalk in the sky of When Autumn Comes it is nearly impossible to tell the difference from photographs side by side. The aspect ration also differs because the board RSW used for his chalks were 22" x 29" versus his canvases which were "25" x 30". Below, for illustration purposes, we laid the oil over top of the chalk at 50% opacity with a black drop shadow around the oil. Using the "V" of the double birch trees to the right as our alignment you can see how the two paintings differ ⮟

An overlay illustration of A Clear September Day on top of When Autumn Comes

⮝ Then biggest difference is found in the varying aspect ratios. The tree to the right, the peak of the distant mountain, and the tree to the left running off the page are stretched in the chalk and squeezed in the oil. But note how the foreground of brush varies very little.

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♦ Although neither piece of artwork clearly shows it, Massemet Mountain's peak has a fire observation tower and overlook (When Autumn Comes shows the slightest hint of it if you look closely). From it's top you can see all of Shelburne, as well as, the main street area known as Shelburne Falls.

For more on the tower, see our Scrapbook story on Nelson "Spence" Woodward, who manned the tower for 26 years after serving in the civil war and is Woodward's uncle.

♦ We recently (October 2015) had the great pleasure seeing this piece in person and having the chance to photograph it. We are very grateful to the current owner for their efforts and time.

Recolllection: Passed on from the family of Gordon Woodward, then President of Smith College:

The family of original buyer, Gordon Woodward, related the following story their grandfather told them describing his meeting Robert Strong Woodward at the Southwick studio. Gordon Woodward felt that RSW was apprehensive, cold, and alluded to them both having the same surname. Given the period of time (following the Great Depression and start of WWII), one can imagine what RSW was thinking when getting a surprise visit from a stranger with the same last name. It wasn't until Gordon Woodward told RSW that he wanted to buy a painting, that RSW let his guard down. The relatives remember that the painting hung over their grandfather's fireplace in Hatfield.