Quick Reference

Time Period:
c. 1930

Location:
Unknown

Medium:
Pastel on Board

Type:
Landscape

Category:
Houses

Size:
20.5" x 28"

Exhibited:
Springfield Art League, 1931

Purchased:
Unknown

Provenance:
N/A

Noteworthy:

There is an oil painting by the same name. This artwork may have also exhibited at the 42nd Annual Water Color Society exhibition a month after the Springfield event as he prepared for his first Tyron Gallery event at Smith College. We know something exhibited there but we have not confirmed its name yet.

Related Links



Featured Artwork: Old New England, Chalk

Old New England
This chalk drawing, "Old New England" c. 1931, is FOR SALE at the Hayden Galleries of North Clarendon, Vermont.
The painting is in good condition. It reportedly has two small water stains on the right margin that are visible in
its current frame, but would be hidden if reframed with matting. Its current frame is in okay condition, however,
there are no spacers separating the painting from the glass... If interested, inquiries can be made via the
following link. This link will take you directly to the pastel painting's inquiry page.

Click here for a high resolution image of drawing

RSW's Diary Comments


Old New England, Chalk sepia print
Old New England sepia print

⮞ 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

Additional Notes


December Farm, A Winter Sketch, c. 1929
This artwork is as "sketchy" as Woodward gets in
terms negative space. It is a departure from his normal
intent and we do not know what prompted the effort.

Editor's Note:

⮜ 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.


Funny Little House
Funny Little House, c. 1931 exhibited five
times and another sketch-like painting, In Old Boston
(c. 1930)
exhibited eight times, including Tyron.

⮞ 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.