RSW's Diary Comments

Keach's Stove Sepia

"Painted in 1931. Old stove with quaint design in sitting-dining room of Keach's farm. Sold through Macbeth Gallery, to Mr. Bartlett Arkell for permanent collection of the Canajoharie (N.Y.) Art Gallery."

Comments on the back of a sepia print:

"Nov. 10th---this painting is now at the Macbeth Gallery---11 East 57th St. , N.Y.C. "Nov. 11th---today this canvas was bought by Mr. Bartlett Arkell and presented to the Canajoharie N.Y. Art Museum for its permanent collection."

To the right: The sepia image of Keach's Stove. Click on the picture to enlarge it.

North Adams Transcript, June, 1932

To the Right:

An article clipping from the New Hamphire 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.

Boston Globe, March 10, 1931, by A. J. Philpott

"Keach's Stove is a bit of interior and still life painting which even Joseph Lindon Smith might envy."
Click on name for more information on Joseph Lindon Smith

Boston Post, Feb., 1931

"There's an amusing quality about Keach's Stove in a humble country kitchen with three small childish figures dancing on the oven door as underwear dries beside it."

Salt Lake Tribune, Sunday morning, April 4, 1937.

"Keach's Stove, by Robert Strong Woodward, shows the artist's keen sense for the human element in the world. He has gone to the countryside among the common folk and has given us many pictures representing types o f country life, always catching some vital point that makes each painting a special feature of that life. He has shown in this painting, as in others, the ability to take the commonest of subjects and by the magic of his brush to transform them into objects of keenest interest, if not always of beauty."

RSW letter to friend F. Earl Williams:

"You will be interested to hear that today I had a letter from Macbeth's saying that for their permanent collection of the Canajoharie Museum of Fine Arts, Mr. Arkell had bought Desk Corner and Keach's Stove--check was enclosed. I shall miss both canvases greatly----Keach's Stove I always considered one of my unsung masterpieces--now it has found its place--and its song."

See also A Country Interior for a similar painting of the Keach residence.