RSW's Diary Comments

Painted in 1936. A studio window picture done in April at the window corner over my desk. One of my favorite window pictures. Exhibited at Boston Art Club, (with excellent press review.) and elsewhere and finally bought (I think the fall of ‘ 36) ---along with Snowing Outside, from the steps of the Exhibition Hall at Manchester, Vt. as it was being carried into the show (!) by Mrs. P.H. B. Frelinghuysen of Morristown NJ.

Recollectionfrom Mark: It was a proud teenager who in those days drove the big Packard phaeton up to Manchester each year to deliver several RSW paintings to the exhibition. On two different occasions when the "summer people" saw the big car arrive they lined up along the walk into the hall to watch me carry paintings in. Twice it happened that someone in the line called out "I want to buy that one, mark it PAID:". This painting was one of those occasions. So, as soon as I had it hung in its assigned place on the wall I put up a sign "Purchased, not for sale." On this occasion the lady also purchased Snowing Outside as well.

Boston Evening Transcript, Magazine Section, Feb. 29, 1939, by William Germain Dooley

"....it must be said that his single canvas in this show The Geranium and the Mountain, brings his clear cut qualities forcibly to the fore. No New England artist has become a more brilliant realist in his interpretation of the provincial regions. This window view, however, is a sheer bit of bright sunny, unaffected, painting, with clarity even in the depth of color. It is a capstone to his remarkable progress

The owner of this painting found this website in April of 2008 and sent us the current color picture above.

Provenance:

After purchase by Mrs. Frelinhuysen this painting ended up in a pediatrician's office in Phoenix, Arizonia where it hung for 35 years. When he retired it went io private home in Phoenix. In 2009 it was inherited by a man in Denver. From there it went to a home in Virgina where it presently hangs having been purchased for $7,000..