Featured Artwork: Fall Flame

Handwritten note, Edith and Winfred Rhoades

Syracuse Post Standard, May, 1931

"Fall Flame is an excellent nature study with a brilliant red tree in the foreground."

Boston Globe, March 10, 1931, by A. J. Philpott

"What a story of the New England Autumn is Fall Flame, for here, truly are the flaming colors that give the New England foliage its coronal distinction in Autumn. That is a wonderful picture."

Editors note: We assume Mrs. Rhoades mistakenly refers to a painting titled Fall Flame because the Rhoades actually had purchased Autumn Flame, not Fall Flame. There is actually quite a bit of confusion surrounding the few paintings of what we believe are the same scene of which we only have one picture. [see below]

October Flame, 1932 -'33

The painting to the left is October Flame. It was made around the same time as Fall Flame exhibiting at different shows. There is a fourth painting, October's Flame, purchased by RSW friend Clifford R. Richmond.

For the Storer/Rhoades to have a version as well as Richmond, and the fact he had two essentially similar paintings exhibiting at the same time says everything about how Woodward feels about the subject. But nothing speaks louder than its appearance at the 1944 Myles Standish Hotel's Finale Exhibition which is literally a collection of Woodward's favorites, many from his own personal collection, in tribute to the hotel and honoring their relationship as the hotel is above to close and be sold to Boston University. But it gets more confusing, with the possibility, though we do not believe so, of a fifth painting.

Below is a quote from art columnist, Anna Olmsted, regarding a painting of Woodward's we have no record of. Not uncommon, but it is published the same day as the above quote, in the same newspaper, only in Olmsted's column, "Art Chat." Olmsted also happens to be the director of the Syracuse Museum of Fine Art where Fall Flame is exhibiting but no other painting listed is a fall scene. So what gives? It would be very unusual for Olmsted to make such an error unless she is commenting about October Flame which could be exhibiting in New York City at an exhibit we are unaware of and it's name was incorrectly printed in the program (a common mistake, if you can believe that). Perhaps, Olmsted saw October Flame in NYC and thought Fall Flame was the same painting hanging in her museum. We do not know.

Syracuse Post Standard, May 31, 1931. Art Chat, by Anna W. Olmsted

"An October Day, this, when the colors seem too good to be true; the sky a dazzle of strong unrelieved blue, against which the fiery reds and golds of the trees compel attention in their autumnal splendor — a scene in which, as the artist himself has expressed it, he has "felt the pure essence of brilliant autumn."