"Painted prior to 1930. A large sugaring picture, hemlock and maple woods, a steep straggly hillside in the foreground, a team of horses drawing a red gathering tub down a rutted wood road in the upper middle distance. Red sap buckets, of course, scattered among the trees, lingering snow drifts here and there. Shown at the National Academy in N. Y. in...then at the Annual Exhibition of the Springfield Art League ( Mass.) where it was awarded in...This canvas hung several seasons in Miss Alice Brown's Sweetheart Tea House. A very impressive canvas, but never sold (1947)"
"Painted in H. L. Keach's sugar orchard in Buckland. The drawing
of the trees is remarkable."
"Awarded First Landscape Prize in 1927, Springfield Art League Exhibition, Springfield, Mass."..
We need to get something straight here and it might rub some people the wrong way because it runs contrary to
Woodward's actual testimony in his Painting Dairy. But we no longer buy the idea that ALL of these personally favorite paintings "never sold." Of the
11 paintings he claimed were his "favorites" or "best", 9 remain in his personal collection and so we are calling a foul on the artist for being misleading.
We are literally blowing the whistle on him... calling BS!
Woodward is not giving us the context of WHY these paintings did not sell. Our
records show that all of his most personal paintings, the one's we call his "editorial" or "brand" paintings either went to museums or were
sold to his best customers (of which four of them are famed art collectors); or someone famous ( like
Robert Frost ); or to personal friends such as
F. Earl Williams or Harold Grieve; for which we are also sure he
did not give them a discount either. ( He was well known to be a stickler on price. ) So what Woodward is really saying is that the right buyer never
presented themselves for him to part with the painting. He would be much more honest to say, 'I love it so much I never found the RIGHT
home for the painting to let it go.' [Read the caption to the right]
Case in point: From this painting, Woodward made two smaller versions. One,
Gathering Sap, went to a great patron of the arts and someone he knew since he was
a kid living in Ohio and later California, Mrs. Josephine Everett of
Cleveland, OH, and Pasadena, CA. She would later donate it to the Pasadena Museum of Art. The other,
Sap Gathering was sold to a Holyoke businessman who Woodward just happen to still be in touch with 20 years later when
he was compiling his Painting Diary and listed the family's new home and address in Montclair, NJ, suggesting there was a personal
nature to their relationship than just artist and buyer.
Finally consider this, When Drifts Melt Fast ranks up there as one of the most celebrated paintings in Woodward's
entire career. It hung at the National Academy and the Pennsylvania Academy. It is his first painting to hang in the Art Institute of Chicago as well as
part of the first exhibit at the Tyron Gallery of Smith College. All of this while still being blackballed in New York City as a result of his disastrous
Redgate Studio fire 5 to 7 years after it happened and STILL not yet
a member of the Boston Art Club although he had been exhibiting there since 1918!
If you need more evidence, consider the paintings it hung
with at the International Rotary Convention in 1938: the 1930 Gold Medal winning New England
Drama; Enduring New England that is hanging at Yale University as
part of the Mabel P. Garvan Collection, and
Benediction which is of a subject he made two other noted versions of - Out of
New England Soil and Mr. Franklin's House. As a footnote, New
England Drama remained in the estate of the artist. Mr. Franklin's House was sold to close friends,
the Rosenzweigs and Out of New England Soil was sold to friend F. Earl Williams and later presented to his alma mater, the Deerfield
Academy where it hangs in the Boyden Library Study Room.
Further evidence of just how meaningful this painting was to the artist. It is the ONLY one of just a handful of personal favorites to have hung at
all 3 of his biggest Myles Standish Gallery exhibitions: the premier exhibit in 1929; the most highly reviewed exhibit in 1931; and the big finale of the
hotel's existence before it shuts its doors in 1944. For it to also hang "several seasons" in one of the most iconic attractions of Shellburne Falls on the
Mohawk Trail, the Sweetheart Tea house and its thousands of yearly visitors and events. We know of no other painting to have hung there. As a matter of
emphasis, both New England Drama and Enduring New England hold the rare distinction of exhibiting at all 3 major Myles
Standish Gallery/Hotel events.
This painting has quite a resume, perhaps unequaled, even without New York's Macbeth and Grand Central Galleries or the Boston Art Club to add to it.
And you will see below that the prize it won in the 1927 Springfield Art League show was not up against a minor league stable of local artist
but some really big names.
"The league's two prizes of $100 each, for the best landscape or marine and the best figure or portrait have been awarded to Robert S. Woodward for his landscape, 'When Drifts Melt Fast,' and to Mrs Marie Danforth rage for her group, 'Polly in Pink. Honorable mention is awarded Anthony Thieme for his landscape, 'Quarry...'"
Note: Anthony Thieme is a well known Rockport artist and a major figure of the Rockport
(MA) School of American regional art. He was also an art teacher opening his own school, the Thieme School of Art, and also taught at the Grand Central
Art Gallery's school of art on the top floor of the Grand Central Station in New York City.
Harriet R Lumis
W. Lester Stevens, and
Wayman Adams
"Here is a New England scene distilled to its poetical essence in color and light, a thawing muddy wood road, snow filled to the ruts, the bare maple trees each flaunting a scarlet sap bucket and yonder in the distance the plodding team and rough wagon with the driver who has been collecting the sap. The creation of still, sparkling cold with no medium but paint, is achievement enough. One detailed comment I cannot forbear, the drawing of the trees is remarkable. With full light upon the bare trunks and leaden sky behind them they have been almost outlined in black and the further emphasis this gives the light upon them as well as the way it makes them live is surprising. Mr. Woodward seems to have identified himself in spirit with his trees."
CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE
JEANETTE MATTHEWS REVIEW
".....perhaps the most splendid of the entire lot is, however, done on a sunless day---a gloriously brilliant hillside, presumably in Vermont, of which one remembers best bluest sky and bright red buckets on the sugar maples. This is Robert Strong Woodward's When Drifts Melt Fast. It won a prize from the Springfield Art League and it is easy to see why....."
"It is no wonder that the big picture, When Drifts Melt Fast, took first prize at the Springfield Art League Show a few years ago. For that is a notable picture, not only in the virile manner in which it is painted, but in the whole character of the composition...."
"A brilliant work, full of the vitality and rhythm of spring surgings, red buckets on gray trunks, horses in the distance dragging their load of gathered sap - sunshine, promise, flickering through the leafless branches - but the inner meaning of the scene is conveyed in the deep irregular ruts of the foreground which the load has left in its trail."