RSW's Diary Comments

Deep yellow glass
"hop bottle" still in
the Woodward
collection

"Painted winter of 1940. One of the several window paintings I have made from the little east window back of my easel in the Buckland studio, this one with snow on the apple trees and a square deep yellow bottle on the window sill. Sold to the Grand Central Art Galleries for their Founders Annual show of 1945."

Comments on the back of a sepia print:

"My only so-called 'window picture' which I have at present, and this is at the Grand Central Art Gallery this summer instead of here at the studio, but of course it could be gotten in time. Deep yellow glass 'hop bottle", small bottle deep blue, apples red, geranium salmon pink."

Editor's Note:

This painting has had a storied journey and it is time we recognized it. It hung at one of Woodward's selective one-man shows at the esteemed Vose gallery in Boston, is hangs in the town hall of Gardner, MA, organized by Woodward friend F. Earl Williams known for discovering a rare Norman Rockwell illustration and for being an exceptional education administrator as the Gardner HS principal and the University of Pennsylvania.

The canvas also hung at perhaps Woodward's most visible one man exhibit at the Grand Central Art Gallery's Gotham Hotel Gallery in 1942. Not only were the reviews by all of the NYC's top critics— McBride and Cortissoz along with another from the New York Times' anonymous critic— glowing reviews but the show was held over to accommodate the nation's first lady, Eleanor Roosevelt's, who lamented in her nationally syndicated newspaper column, she would not get to New York in time to visit the event. Finally, for any painting to be purchased by the Grand Central Art Gallery for its annual fundraiser for its art school named "The Founders' Show" is a high honor and indicates its desirability to collectors. (Perhaps that is how it ended up in Naples, Florida.) ⮟

Naples (FL) Art Institute home of the
von Liebig Art Center

This painting was exhibited at the Naples Art Association's 2010 Naples Collects exhibit at the von Liebig Art Center, 585 Park Street, Naples, FL 34102... it is unknown to us if the painting is in the association's collection or if it was on loan by its owner. This information came from Dr. Mark and do not know its source.

We will investigate this further...