RSW's Diary Comments

A Hill Road (oil), c.1947

Woodward did not keep records of his pastel paintings he called chalk drawings.

Editor's Note:

There is no image for this pastel painting, however, an oil painting with nearly the same name, made the year before, makes it hard not to believe they are not similar in look and subject.

This pastel is one of 20 newly discovered painting names taken from an audit of Woodward's personal collection of Southern Vermont Artists Association (SVAA) exhibit programs not originally included in the Deerfield Academy's 1970 catalog of Woodward's work. We know it is a pastel because Woodward wrote "chalk" next to its name in the 1947 SVAA exhibit program.

Unnamed: Hill Road in Heath, date unknown
However, we believe it was painted almost a decade prior.

To the left:

The unnamed painting to the left of the same subject we believe this chalk to be. It should probably be in the section above if not for the fact that the chalk and the oil above were made in the same year (1947). Also, the 1947 oil painting is an award winner and was purchased by renown collector and Woodward's best customer Adaline Have-meyer Frelinghuysen.

The unnamed painting is suspected to have been made nearly a decade prior due to its brush-style matching paintings of that era. However, the aspect ratio of the painting in this section is more similar to that of the pastel painting.

The Hill Road, 1937

To illustrate what we mean, the aspect ratio (the width to the height of an image) of a typical pastel is 1.32 (22" x 29") and the painting to the upper left is 1.5 (24" x 36"), a difference to that of a pastel of 0.18. Whereas, the 1947 painting above is 1.11 (27" x 30"), a difference of 0.21. Visually, the difference is the 1947 painting is closer to square and the other two are rectangular.

We would be remiss to not also point out that there is a 1937 painting named, The Hill Road, a completely different subject. Still, it is not lost on us that there is again another decade difference, like that of the two Hill Roads in Heath of this page. We would not be surprised to learn this chalk is closer to the painting on the right. However, we feel this is still a long shot.