RSW's Diary Comments

Woodward in his 1923 Studebaker, mid-1920s. The picture
was taken during a visit to the Dressers. That tree looks like it
matches the one in the cottage picture you can see below. ⮟

"Painted about 1935. A 36" x 42" made from the smaller 27" x 30" canvas In Vermont of the same subject, a view of the long rambling Norton farm set against a background of Vt. hills (including Mt. Mansfield) and topped with a very beautiful summer cloud design (an "anvil" cloud). The original was painted prior to 1930 at Riverton, Vt., near Montpelier, where I used to go to visit Mrs. Geo. E. Dresser. I made several paintings and chalk drawings of these Norton buildings, and several later paintings from original sketches. This 36" x 42" was bought in about 1938 by Mrs. Herbert Newton of Oak Street, Holyoke, Mass. (Mr. Newton later in 1947 bought From Our Forefathers and When Apples are Ripe.) A smaller painting of this same subject, a 27" x 30" upright is titled In Vermont which see."

Woodward in front of the cottage with
a number of people we cannot name. Mrs.
Dresser is the woman in the white dress.

Editor's Note:

We do not know how often Woodward visited Mrs. Dresser. We know of two times. He visited some time before 1925, when he painted September Mountain, a painting she purchased from him. Then again in 1928. On that trip, according to the diary remarks above, he made a couple pastels (he called chalks), the 30" x 27" In Vermont, and several sketches.

The pastel paintings exhibit in 1928 ( Saddleback Barn at J.H. Miller ) and 1929 (Vermont Barns (Chalk) at the Southern Vermont Artist Association ) respectively. Then nothing for 5 years, until Vermont Barns (Oil) probably from one of the sketches he made because the perspective of the "saddleback barn" is unlike any of the other paintings.

Silent Evening

The great mystery is where the painting In Vermont was for 14 years. There is no record of the canvas exhibiting until then! When Mrs. Dresser's health began to decline to the period of moribund around the years 1935-'36. She was getting her estate in order wanted to return her paintings (September Mountain mentioned previously and Silent Evening an early 1920s canvas. But Woodward makes no mention of In Vermont also being returned. Shortly after Mrs. Dresser passed in Feb. 1937, September Mountain is sold to another person and exhibits at the Newport (RI) Art Association (now known as the Newport Art Museum) in 1938. Woodward keeps Silent Evening for a period of time where it exhibits at the Myles Standish Hotel's grand finale show closing the hotel in 1944. In Vermont reappears just between the other two in 1942. We believe the canvas was with Mrs. Dresser, but Woodward left no evidence to confirm that.



⮟ Below are picture of the back of the canvas stretcher showing its name and a label with Mrs. Newton's name ⮟

The canvas name on the back of the stretcher.

An image of Mrs. Newton's name.

Mr. Newton also purchased When Apples are Ripe (25" x 30") and From Our Forefathers.

Below are side by side images of the weather vane for this page's painting, Up In Vermont, with that of the weather vane for In Vermont and they are dramatically different. Since Woodward made it clear that Up in Vermont was made FROM In Vermont, than it is apparent that the artist indulged himself by changing the weather vane from a simple arrow-point to an archangel, Gabriel blowing his horn, weathervane. The symbolism is important, in that, Gabriel only blows his horn when judgment or atonement day arrives. It is also, sometimes called "the reckoning." We suspect that this a tribute to Mrs. Dresser's passing. Woodward never says anywhere that he returned to the Norton farm after his 1928 visit. Four paintings came out of that 1928 visit to Mrs. Dresser. The two pastels mentioned above and In Vermont, as well as, Vermont Barns an oil painting of a completely different perspective of Saddleback Barn. But even that painting has big question marks we address on its page. Back to the weathervane, Woodward did use the Gabriel weathervane motif as the featured piece of his 1926 Lyman Ballroom exhibition that relaunched his career after a four year recovery from his 1922 studio fire... and finally, we cannot help noting that the Gabriel is facing in the opposite direction than the original weathervane towards Mrs. Dresser's cottage. See Trumpeting Angel for more on the Gabriel Weathervane!

THIS PAINTING: UP IN VERMONT

Trumpeting angel weather vane in Up in Vermont.

THE ORIGINAL PAINTING: IN VERMONT

A close up cropped from In Vermont.

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The Norton Farm, Riverton, VT:

The Dresser Cottage, Riverton, VT
The small tree at the end of the cottage driveway is seen in
a photograph of Woodward in his Studebaker, fully packed,
pointing in the direction leaving the image you see, possibly
because he is headed toward the Norton farm to paint! We are
not certain of the year but it is between 1924 and 1928.

The Norton Farm is located in Riverton, VT, down the way from Mrs. Julia Dresser's summer cottage. Mrs. Dresser is a friend of Woodward's and he occasionally drove the 2 hours it would take to visit in his 1923 Stude-baker. We do not know how the two knew each other to be this close. Mrs. Dresser is 17 years older than the artist. She was born and had a home in Thompson, CT, however we have learned that the Thompson home is a family home going back to her grandparents. She primarily grew up in Chicago where her financier father was a prominent businessman dealing mostly in shipping (railroads and ships) and trade (grocery wholesalers). Beside the house in Thompson and the cottage in Riverton, there was also a place in New York City. With that information, our best guess would be that their paths crossed in Chicago when a young Woodward was living in Peoria, IL.

We only just recently put together that five paintings of two different set of barns are all from the same farm. We have diary comments for all three oil paintings mentioning the Nortons but Woodward did not keep a record of his pastels. The two pastel paintings, Saddleback Barn and Vermont Barns (Chalk) have always been linked to Vermont Barns (Oil) because it is clearly the same "end-barn" in all three scenes. However it was never understood how In Vermont, and Up in Vermont fit into the picture. They were the barns closest to the house but where were they in relation to the other barns? Then we noticed that a small shed appeared in three of the five paintings. It is in both "in Vermont" canvases and one pastel. We take that shed, size and merge it with the pastel, Vermont Barns(Chalk) to make one full-length image and it all lines up. ⮟ SEE BELOW ⮟

This is NOT proportionally accurate. The barns to the left of the picture are clearly too large to be correct.