"Painted in March 1946. Of the studio easel window painted so many times. Similar to painting My Winter Window Shelf painted for Mr. and Mrs. Pettis in 1945 but with red geranium on the left instead of right, glass bird instead of glass apple, etc. Partially made from chalk drawing made for Miss Dow a few weeks earlier. Sold Fall of 1946 to Mr. and Mrs. Louis Rosenzweig, 95 Beacon St., Greenfield, Mass.
Winter Orchard was awarded "Most Popular Picture"
at the 1946 Deerfield Valley Art Association exhibition. It is the show's top prize. In his career, Woodward won 20 awards, seven
First Prizes. Still, distinction need to be made. Four of those prizes were the exhibit's top overall prize and the other three were
top prize in a particular category, such as portrait, landscape or still life. It really depended on the structure decided on by the
organization running the show. Some shows had both a jury award and a popular vote...
Nonetheless, a prize is
a prize. We are simply trying to give some context to Woodward's accomplish-ments.
Left is a close up of the apple in this painting. RSW was quite proud of his apples. He comments on his own ability to paint lamps and apples in comparison to two other artist (Paul Cézanne and John Singer Sargent) in a letter found on the When Apples Are Ripe page or CLICK HERE for our Scrapbook page devoted to the discussion of apples in Woodward's paintings.We would also like to point out that the dried leaves accompanying the apple are clippings from the Beech Tree on Burnt Hill in Heath, MA. They appear in a couple of other Window Picture paintings and are featured prominently in the painting Winter Pleasures.