Quick Reference

Time Period:
1929

Location:
Top of Hog Hollow Road
Upper Buckland, MA

Medium:
Chalk drawing

Type:
Landscape

Category:
Landscape & Views, Cemetery

Size:
22 x 29


Purchased:
Unknown

Provenance:
NA

Noteworthy:

This is the only known work by RSW of a cemetery. It was beautifully reviewed by Jeanette Matthews in 1929.


Related Links

Featured Artwork: God's Quiet Acre

RSW's Diary Comments


Unfortunately for us, Woodward did not keep records of his chalk drawings.



Additional Notes


Springfield Republican, Dec. 11, 1929
To read Ms. Matthews full review, CLICK ON IMAGE

Jeanette C. Matthews's review of this painting:

"Then comes vivid pleasures at the rich color that Mr. Woodward has employed in so many of these drawings. It, is hard to select individual pictures for preference but I think 'God's Quiet Acre' is the greatest. It gives one that same choke in the throat that comes with reading a perfect sonnet. It is by enumeration just a bit of burial ground that has almost returned to its original pasture, a wide sky of that blue for which I can find none but threadbare adjectives and an horizon radiance that would cure even a stock market depression. This is not to mention the subtle design which is built around the cycloidal pasture."


Aunt Lucy in 1956 (Lucy Bridgman Merrill)
The original owner of this chalk drawing

Ms. Matthews is wonderful reviewer of art. We only have a couple of her reviews but each one is far more descriptive and eloquent than most all the others. She phrases things in such a way that it is clear she knows art but at the same time never goes over her readers heads. Another great review from this article is for December Farm; A Winter Sketch .

Note Ms. Matthews makes a reference to the stockmarket depression. For context, this exhibit is held just 8 weeks after Black Tuesday, the day of the disastrous stockmarket crash and we wonder if there is something to Ms. Matthews' insight. The same could be said of December Farm; A Winter Sketch.

Woodward thought so... he wrote in the margin of this clipping, "Excellent review."


The Pynchon Gallery Exhibition is one of the few exhibitions that featured Woodward's "Crayon Drawings." As many as 13 were reported to be exhibited and this website is not aware of any exhibit that featured more than this number. The Deerfield Academy, 1932 Exhibition featured 10 drawings.


Also we invite you to read the lovingly wonderful recollection of Lucy Bridgman Merrill, the original owner of God's Quiet Acre, by her nephew James.


Lucy is one of a growing list of deeply devote, college educated women who chose a career and a devotional path over having children in Woodward's life. Lucy worked as a teacher for a brief period of time and worked for a number religiously affiliated organizations. She is the second, to marry very late in her years, well past the child bearing years. Lucy and Woodward developed a friendship over the years and she exemplifies the sort of women he famously got along with just fine, as well as the sort of customer his chalk drawings were specifically meant.