RSW's Diary Comments

A color photo of the pasture cabin with its
attached garage from some time in the early 1940s

• Woodward did not keep records of the pastels he called "chalk drawings."

Editor's Note:

This pastel was made around the same time as many others. While the artist had painted the Beech Tree on Burnt Hill, in Heath (MA), as early as 1919, he did not come to own the property until 1938 and it took a little more than two years to complete the small studio cabin were he'd do much of his work... Once it was finished, Woodward churned out numerous paintings and pastels from the end of 1940 through 1941. Of the 48 or so Beech Tree paintings, a third of them were made between mid-1940 and 1941.

Close up of the name ⮝ above and signature ⮟ below

This pastel came up for auction at the Douglas Auctioneers in Deerfield, MA, in September of 2015. We no longer list hammer price sales from auctions but for context as to just how much more appreciated the artist's pastels have become. In 2012 the pastels routinely sold for as much as 200% above inflation. This paintings went for more than 300%.

To figure these numbers, you take the value of the dollar in the year the painting was made and multiple it by the list price in that year and that gives you the "adjusted value" of the pastel today. In 2025, pastels are approaching prices 400% above inflation.

Ms Mabel Raguse

Our picture of this pastel hardly does its beauty justice. We were graced with its presence when it exhibited at the Memorial Hall Museum, Deerfield, MA, in 2018. At this exhibit we had someone argue with us, insisting it was an oil painting. That is how impressive the artist's pastels truly are and this is intentional. Woodward wanted them to be as fine a painting as the oils but more affordable to people such as teachers, merchants, and even modest church secretaries.

⮜ Mabel Raguse, a life-long teacher, is a great example of this idea of affordability. In her life she bought three pastels and managed to also buy to oil paintings. Woodward appreciated her so much he made her a small oil painting titled, The Surprise. Unfortunately we do not know what happened to it. We suspect that it was the one thing she kept with her when she entered a nursing home and it was lost. Mabel's story and that of Lucy Bridgman are just a couple examples of the artist's effort to have affordable art.