RSW's Diary Comments

Happy Sugar House

None.

Editor's Note:

There is some confusion over this painting. Dr. Mark was pretty confident this painting is linked to the Gray Sugar House in Ashfield, MA. However, the painting does not have a painting diary entry and Woodward was making a lot of sugar house paintings at this time. For instance, the pastel painting to the left is from the same time period, as is, Steaming Sugar House, Maple Sugaring, and Rosco Temple's Sugar House and yet another simply called Sugaring... For more on this see below.

In the Sugar House, Boiling, Chalk
An interior of the Gray Bros. Sugar House.

Exhibited at J. H. Miller Co. Galleries, Springfield, Mass. April 24 - May 8. 1928

This page has been corrected. We believe Dr. Mark mixed up this painting with the two interior paintings (one an oil, the other a pastel- seen to the right), as being ALL the same subject. Still, Dr. Mark, was confident this painting is linked to the Gray Bros. sugar house and because we can no longer ask him about it, we will give him the benefit of the doubt, and trust he knew this somehow from his years working for the artist.

What we no longer believe is that this painting in an interior. In Woodward's own words in his diary comments for the oil painting, In the Sugar House, Boiling, he says that he had "Fabian carried me inside to work, because [it was] too cold and windy to work outside the day I went over there to paint." Larch and Brian both asked, "What was he painting outside?" and our conclusion is that it was the exterior of the sugar house which is the subject of this piece. Add to this the information provided by the Gray family that 1930 was the last year that sugar house was used, than in all likelihood, Woodward went there to capture it for prosperity before it was retired. Until we have more information or find the painting, we will, at the very least, no longer assert it is an interior like the other paintings.