RSW's Diary Comments

After Rain Sepia Print

"November of 1941. Painted from the west window of Heath Pasture House. Greylock range under strip of lemon yellow sky. Sold from my Grand Central Art Exhibition at Hotel Gotham Branch, March 1942 to Mrs. B. L. Walton, Flushing, N.Y."

Comment on the back of a sepia print:

"From the Heath west window."

Additional Dairy Comments for Heights of Heath:

"Painted from west window of Pasture House in the early summer of 1947. Flat, horizontal pasture stretches in low foreground, with very dark small, symmetrical pine in left center, silhouetted against the horizon band of distant blue mountains crowned by rounded Greylock. A dramatic tangled mass of summer clouds, broken by small patches of blue tubes up the upper 2/3 of the canvas."

Heath Cottage front windows and through those
windows is the west window around the corner. You
can also see the attached garage where he sat for this.

In the photo to the left you get a good view of the large west window by looking through the front window of the little pasture studio. Here is a trivial fact... Every one of Woodward's studios had a corner window! Redgate had one, the Hiram Woodward studio had two, and the Southwick studio had, of course, his desk corner windows he painted numerous times.

The Heath retreat was unique in several ways. For one, it was built facing southeast towards his home, the Buckland Hills. It did not have an artist north window for that reason, however there was a northeast window in the rear of the place where he painted the "broken wall" and birch tree by the mowing field a couple of times. And as you can see from the picture there was also a large east window that was featured in the painting Frost on the Window. Needless to say, with all of the windows, he did not spend much time there during the winter. It was mostly a seasonal place.

View of Mount Greylock behind trees from
Burnt Hill, Heath, MA, July, 2006

The pasture land is, over the years, gradually filling in with trees. Only certain areas still are covered with low bush blueberries.

The property was 160 acres when Woodward bought it for the price of two oil paintings in 1938. The cabin / cottage was finished in 1942, and eight years later burned under mysterious circumstances.

Below are a couple of bonus pictures. On the left is another painting painted from the western side of the building only Woodward painted this one en plein air meaning outside.

On the right is this painting in it ornate frame. For a number of reasons, this is a treat. It is not often we get good enough picture to include the frame.

Heights of Heath #1

After Rain in its frame