RSW's Diary Comments

"Painted in 1932. One of the earlier ones of the beech tree in the Heath Pasture bought by the graduating class of 1935 at Amherst Massachusetts State College and presented to the college where it hangs in the new library building."

Editor's Note:

Woodward is incorrect on the year in his diary comment. This painting exhibited at the Grand Central Art Galleries in 1931. That record is impeachable.

Painting hangs in the Engineering Library
Below: the nameplate found on the frame

Presented by graduating class of 1935 to University of Massachusetts Amherst.

After a number of years tucked away in the UMass Library "Archival Office" where one could see the painting only by appointment. It has now been relocated to the Science & Engineering Library.

We wish to thank the library staff for informing us of the move and furnishing us with the new image above.

Amherst Agricultural College,
Massachusetts Collegian, May 16, 1935

To the left: is an article from the Massachusetts Collegian announcing the gift to the school by the class of 1935. The article references the persistent myth Woodward intended to become an engineer before his accident. We know this now to NOT be true. Woodward's father, a real estate developer, wanted his son to attend Stanford University in California for engineering but in Woodward's letters to friends, around the same time, he was plotting to find his way to the Boston Museum of Fine Art School in Boston. He was simply appeasing his father. Woodward didn't want to be anything other than an artist, however, it does make for a more interesting story- or should we say, legend.

Amherst Agricultural College, Massachusetts Collegian, May 16, 1935

"Next Thursday at Convocation the senior class will present to the college a canvas entitled From a New England Pasture, executed by Robert Strong Woodward, a painter of New England. Previous to this year no graduating class has presented a gift of this sort. Harlow Hermanson, representing the senior class, will present the painting."