RSW's Diary Comments

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

Greenfield Recorder-Gazette,
Greenfield, MA, December 14, 1928

"The Saddleback Barn, Vermont,' a typical-
ly New England crayon drawing of a weath-
ered, decrepit old barn, was purchased by
Miss Janet Russell."

Editor's Note:

The first painting to exhibit from Woodward's 1928 "Late Summer" visit to Mrs. Julia Dresser's summer cottage in Riverton, VT. The barn is the furthermost, in a line of 5 barns, from the house, from the Norton Farm 'down-a-ways' from Mrs. Dresser's place.

The day he visited, Woodward states in his painting diary entry for, Up In Vermont, "I made several paintings and chalk drawings of these Norton buildings, and several later paintings from original sketches."

Woodward in his 1923 Studebaker, on his 1928 visit to the
Dressers. The tree to the right, appears to be the same tree at the
end of the cottage driveway in a picture shown below (next section).

The Saddleback Barn is one of the pastels made that day, and it exhibited at the artist's one-man showing of all pastels in 1928 at the home of Miss Ann Koch in Greenfield, MA. The another painting was Vermont Barns (Chalk), which exhibited at the 1929 Southern Vermont Artist Association ⮟

Vermont Barns, (Chalk), 1928

There are so many irregularities tied to this 1928 visit we had to make a table to make sense of it and to be honest, some of Woodward's account of that day is hard to believe. We believe he made numerous "chalk drawings" as he called them. The sketches as well, seem likely to have been done. Our trouble is with his claim that he ALSO painted two canvases— In Vermont, and Vermont Barns (Oil) (seen below ⮟)

We understand that Woodward worked both his pastels and oil canvases very quickly. We have newspaper accounts of this claim, as well as Dr. Mark's first hand testimony. But there is a distinction to be made. En plein air, as it is called, Woodward can capture a working pro-duct by sketching to canvas the scene and then applying pigment to capture colors, tones and hues. However, he finished most canvases in his studio. We have personal diaries that confirms this. He will also return to the scene multiple times, like he did in 1932's painting, Red Barns in Southern Vermont just over the line from Heath, MA. But Riverton is a good 3 hours away in his time and we think it is unlikely he and his attendant drove back and forth multiple times. He could have stayed the weekend with the Dressers, but he does not say that in his painting diary. He omitted a lot of details from his painting diary.

Vermont Barns, 1928: first exhibited in 1934

In Vermont 1928: first exhibited in 1942

⮜ ⮝ We offer more details and questions on the actual artwork pages of certain paintings. The two we singled out here, said to be made on the 1928 visit disappear for years before exhibiting which is the complication of the matter, in a nutshell.

This is NOT proportionally accurate. The barns to the left of the picture are clearly too large to be correct.
However, it is the small shed and hay pile by the fence that overlap that links the all the barns together.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

A picture of the Dresser Cottage, Riverton, VT.
As mention in the picture of RSW in his Studebaker
above, the tree seen to the right of the home is the
same tree. The photo to the left of this one shows
the other side of the cottage not seen in this image.
(The picture above is courtesy of James Sumner.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A closer look at the signature

A closer look at the name.