RSW's Diary Comments

A newly discovered photograph of Wood-
ward sitting at the elbow of his desk with the desk-
corner windows seen just over his left shoulder to
the right. Taken by F. Earl Williams and part of his
Smithsonian papers on Woodward collection

"Painted in 1936. A valley and mountain view of Buckland valley and Ashfield hills in mid winter. Painted from the studio through the little south desk window over my blue blotter, a very dramatic sun streaked sky over the folding hills. Exhibited at my Vose Gallery Exhibition in Boston in 19(36) and printed on the announcement card. Bought later bv Mr. and Mrs. P.H.B. Frelinghuysen of Manchester, Vt., and Morristown, N. J."

Editor's Note:

We found the image above (a sepia print) in the Harold Grieve papers of the Smithsonian's Woodward collection photographed by Larch on his visit there a number of years ago. There was no name on the matting the image was adhered to, unlike the other sepia image in the Grieve papers, Winter Song.

Grieve, an original member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a Hollywood set designer, later started his own interior design business with his notoriously famous wife and brokered several deals for Woodward's work. The two first met when Harold was a young boy in Los Angeles when Woodward went to live there with his parents(1906). Harold's father was the local butcher of the neighborhood the Woodward family lived before his accident.

This is a very interesting painting. It is linked to two important people in Woodward's life: a close personal friend and his Los Angeles art dealer, and his best customer. It hung at Woodward's first exhibition at the Vose Gallery in Boston and was featured on the announcement cards. What's more is that there are two other paintings of this scene from slightly different angles, in different season - Out the Bedroom Window and Unnamed: Down the Valley. SEE BELOW

Adaline Havemeyer Frelinghuysen
from her 1905 Bryn Mawr College year-
book. Her sister, Electra, is known for
founding the Shelburne Museum, VT.

Adaline Havemeyer Frelinghuysen is far and away Woodward's best customer. A resident of Morristown, NJ, she and her husband Peter Hood Ballentine Frelinghuysen Sr. (a former law school classmate of not-yet-President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and served as an usher at his wedding to Eleanor) summered in Manchester, VT. The earliest records we have of their relationship began with the start of the Southern Vermont Artist Association in 1927.

Over the years, we have learned that she and her husband bought as many as 30 paintings (including chalks) and we continue to discover more each year. Primarily because there were a number of private sales that were not recorded in Woodward's records, as well as, Adaline's appreciation for pastels and chalks which Woodward did not keep records. We believe her love of pastels comes from her mother (Louisine W. E. Havemeyer) and her close friendship with an artist famous for her pastels, Mary Cassatt. Cassatt was also friends with Edgar Degas one of the most famous pastel artists of all time whom we believe had a significant influence on Woodward.

If you are wondering, Adaline is the daughter of controversial sugar magnate and renowned art collector, Henry Osborne Havemeyer of the famed Havemeyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Her mother, a leader of the sufferage movement. Her sister Electra Havemeyer Webb is the founder of the amazing Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, VT.

Out the Bedroom Window

Unnamed: Down the Valley