Featured Artwork: Near the Sky

Courage and Peace, c. 1933

There is no diary entry for this painting. Read more in comments below ⮟

Editor's Note:

There is a description of this canvas given by the Springfield Union's art critic, Jeannette Matthews, that leads us to believe she is describing the "Carter farm" on Avery Road in Buckland, MA, portrayed in the painting Courage and Peace seen to the right. ⮞

The points Ms. Matthews makes about this painting's importance to the J.H. Miller Gallery One Man Show event in 1928-- holding a place of honor as well as there being a chalk drawing of the same scene -- makes this an especially egregious diary omission by Woodward. Again, we must stress the the artist did not begin assembling a painting diary until the 1940s. He does so primarily by memory and did not appear to use the numerous scrapbook clippings he kept and was available to him for reference... More below ⮟

April 25, 1928, Springfield Union and Republican
by art critic Jeannette Matthews

Here is Jeannette Matthews description of this canvas:

"Because it has the place of honor, because it treats of a theme that has also been done in crayon and because it really is the most moving canvas in the show, 'Near the Sky' ought to be considered. I have remarked before that Mr. Woodward shows more gift for naming his pictures than is usual among artists. This is a particularly felicitous title. It is a bare winter scene in the hills where one looks across the buildings of a farm, buildings set end to end so that they make a straight line across the picture parallel with the old hills behind them. Such immensity of sky it would seem impossible to get into even a big canvas like this. It is stark and cold and bare in that picture, but it leaves you tingling because it is 'near the sky.' The crayon from the same theme is softer, just a shade softer in the blue of the hills, a hint less compelling, more to be lived with when one's courage is not quite at top notch and that one Mr. Woodward calls 'New England Winter.'" [Emphasis added by staff. See story below...]

⮝ If not for the mention of the chalk drawing being the "same theme" and its name is New England Winter, we would have no idea what season this painting is. There is a concern of Matthews description of the hills having blue. We think she means this figuratively Technically, there is blue in the hills of Courage and Peace but its warmth comes from the red that makes the hill a magenta.

Peace and Courage, 1934

Ms. Matthews also mentions the canvas is "big." This can only mean it is either a 40" x 50" or a 36" x 42", the size of Courage and Peace. From 1918 to 1930, there are only 5 canvases 36" x 42" but more than 20: 40" x 50" paintings. Woodward would stop making 40" x 50" canvases after 1932 and his "big" paintings where exclusively 36" x 42" in size.

⮜ If Near the Sky is the same subject as Courage and Peace and the painting to the left Peace and Courage, it would be the original. As it is with many of his most admired canvases, the other versions (all slightly different in some way- here it is probably size), went to his closest allies. In this case, Courage and Peace went to the artist's patron-saint, Mrs. Ada Moore, and Peace and Courage to his dear friend and Hollywood connection Harold Grieve.