RSW's Diary Comments

The Flying Fox, 1924

"Prior to 1930. One of my 'early' paintings. Painting of an open doorway of a tumble-down old barn, aslant and askew, looking in on the haymow and barn floor, chickens, roosters, little pigs all about the door---in the barn and about the ground outside."

Comments on a sepia print:

"Again one of my earlier canvases, but always a favorite of mine. Similar in character to one owned by Mrs. Lennart Palme."

Editor's Note:

This painting represents a shift in Woodward's style, as well as his approach towards the intimacy with his subject he would become known. Aside from the dusky, woods interiors of his Quintessential Redgate paintings from the rear of his Redgate studio, Woodward did not get this close to architectural subjects.

We often pair this painting with The Flying Fox as an illustration of the start of this trend.

To the Right: North Adams Transcript, June 1932

An article clipping from the North Adams Transcript regarding RSW's exhibition at the Deerfield Academy (1932). It is one of 12 oil paintings mentioned in the article and one of 20 oil paintings and 10 chalk drawings exhibited.

This painting and Above the Valley are the only two paintings to appear in all 3 of Woodward's big exhibitions of the later 1920's... Lyman, J.H. Miller and Littlecote.

This painting is privately owned.

Site of this barn is uncertain but seems to be one of the Keach farm barns.

Boston Globe, 1926 by A. J. Philpott

"....Is a vivid luminous picture, strong in contrasts, rich in color."

The Boston Globe, December 9, 1926.
This article incorrectly cites the picture as
"My Winter Shelf." It is actually
The Window; A Still Life and Winter Scene