[IMAGE, Right column]: Silent Evening, oil.

...attempt to help pay his living cost.

From the beginning of his painting career he worked eagerly and persistently to develop a style all his own. He was a man of order and precision and this was reflected in the serenity of his uncluttered studio and the logic of his work. His early paintings treated the scenes in an impressionistic manner. Brilliant colors and bold strokes were characteristic of his work at this time, but never to the extent of the new school of Extremist. He often used very large brushes, but never a palette knife to put on thick layers of paint. At this early period of his development, his isolation and sense of order are two important factors in determining his style and technique.

In 1918, upon the urging of Garner Symons, an older artist in the area, Woodward sent "The Golden Barn" to the National Academy Exhibit in New York City where it passed the jury and was hung. The following year he entered "Between Setting Sun and Rising Moon", winning the first Hallgarten Prize of $300.00. As he wrote later: "it was... My first prize, my first prominent public notice. Mr. Hallgarten himself bought the painting from the Exhibition for $500.00, a tremendous sum to me at the time!"

Unfortunately many of his early paintings have either darkened or cracked because he had not learned the technique of making a painting stand up to time. He stated the specific problems later when writing about "Tangled Branches", a canvas painted in 1918-19. "I fear it has darkened considerably... Because I didn't fully understand, at the time, the darkening dangers of certain dryers and varnish mediums."

From the beginning, trees held a very important place in Woodward's re-creation of New England on canvas. The dark forest interior with light filtering through the branches is a scene common to "Between Setting Sun and Rising Moon", "Tangled Branches", and "Early Moonlight". Later when he had replaced his horse and buggy with a car too large to be driven down narrow roads into dense woods, he painted fewer of the dark forest scenes.

About 1921 critics said of his paintings: "So marked has been his progress that it is easy to take a dozen of his paintings and arrange them chronologically without a mistake."

Whether in full leaf or completely bare, the structure of a tree always fascinated Woodward. He can capture its texture and beauty from the solid shade of the trunk to the delicate pattern of new twigs. When he found a beautiful tree he often painted it several times. In "Early Sugaring" it is possible to see the...