⮞ Woodward did not keep records of his pastel paintings, which he called chalk drawings. However,
in this instance, we had a sepia print of the painting, probably because it was exhibited at the spring
show of the Springfield Art League in 1931. The sepias (photographs) were used instead of sending the
painting itself to the event for jury selection.
An oil painting by the same name hung at the
Lyman Residence exhibition in Boston in 1926. Boston Globe art critic A.J. Philpott's description, "'Old
New England' is a gem in its bit of hill distance and a cluster of buildings in the foreground..." comes
nowhere near matching the painting above
⮜ This was made when the artist was playing with partially incomplete "sketch-like"
chalks. The above artwork is more "filled in" than December Farm, A Winter Sketch, to the left. If you look
more closely, you will see that Woodward is utilizing the brownish color of the board, and yet he filled in
all the details of the ramshackle home just as he did with the barns in December Farm.
What is
unusual about this experiment is that Woodward took great pride in making the appearance of his chalk
drawings as close to his oil paintings as possible. In fact, his 1929 experimental exhibition at the Pynchon
Gallery was a testament to this fact. He featured his pastel as the main event and hung their oil counterparts
in another room.
⮞ Perhaps someone Woodward respected suggested he try it
out or saw a trend building and thought he would try it out. The pastel to the right, Funny Little House,
was exhibited five times, including at the Vose Galleries in Boston. When the artist exhibits a painting,
he says something about how he feels about it. Since the artwork on this page was shown at the Springfield
Art League, where he won two first-place awards, it was his only entry that year as he prepared for his
first Tryon Gallery show at Smith College, which speaks volumes. There is also the possibility that this
pastel was then sent to the 42nd Annual Water Color Society exhibition the next month. We know he exhibited
something, but we have not yet confirmed its name.
Woodward was a member of the Water Color Society,
and he typically attended this event in person with his beloved patron saint and famous art collector,
Mrs. Josephine Everett of Cleveland, OH, and Pasadena, CA, when she
traveled to New York City. For those of you who do not know, watercolors and pastels at that time were
considered "drawings" and had their own division within or in association with the National Academy of Design.