RSW's Diary Comments

Winter Afternoon (Oil), Sepia

"Painted about 1940. This canvas was made new in the studio from an old 27 x 30 of the same subject I painted from the window of the Hog Hollow school house in the early days when Miss Russ lived there. This first canvas, tho impressive in color and design, was imperfect technically and was laid aside. I loaned it to Fabian for his house for a few years. When Fabian left and I got the canvas finally back in my hands, I made a new painting from it and then destroyed the old one. This new canvas proved to be one of the handsomest winter canvases I ever made and very popular. It was exhibited about the country for a year or so and then bought jointly by Mr. and Mrs. Edward A. Pettis and Dr. and Mrs. Doolittle of Agawam, Mass., who own it together, sharing it each 6 months of the year. At the time I made the new painting I also made a chalk drawing of the same thing which was bought by Carl Nilman of Buckland, whose farm in Hog Hollow is the subject matter. A white greenish yellow N. E. farm house on a winter, tree shadowed, knoll from which winds a back winter brook: two graceful elms rise against the landscape, back of the house and barns, a dark winter wooded hill curves across the top of the canvas, with but a strip of sunlit pale yellow sky showing above the hill. Lovely blue shadows from trees and woods slant across the landscape accentuating the contours of the road and the knoll."

Editor's NOTE:

This painting was purchased from the 1944 Mr. & Mrs. Roger Smith Exhibition. A private exhibition of remarkable painting arranged by F. Earl Williams. Go to the bottom of this page for more...

Boston Sunday Post, April 26, 1942

"A Winter Afternoon is particularly pleasing. The sun delicately tints the gleaming new-fallen snow with lovely hues of the opal; wheel ruts curve gracefully toward the little green cottage with hospitably lighted windows and smoking chimney. Trees, shrubbery, and narrow bridge over dark, icy waters all add their full quota to the well-knit design."

New England Afternoon is the chalk drawing made from this painting of the same scene. Owned by the Buckland Historical Society in Buckland, MA. The drawing can be seen, on display, in its Upper Street location.

White Winter is another oil painting of the same house from a different vantage point.

The house in this painting is the Nilman House which was also once owned by RSW's great, great grandfather Spencer Woodward. For more information about this house, please CLICK HERE.

Below is a letter written by RSW to Mrs. Pettis regarding Winter Afternoon.

Winter Afternoon (Oil), Letter Page 1

Winter Afternoon (Oil), Letter Page 2

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The 1944 Mr. & Mrs. Roger Smith Exhibition:

The chalk drawing The Road Home, this oil,
A Winter Afternoon, and the chalk Mountain Meadow together
hanging on the wall of the Smith home. on the wall

To the right: is a photograph of the chalk drawing The Road Home, this oil, A Winter Afternoon, and the chalk Mountain Meadow together hanging on the wall for a private exhibition in the home of Mr. & Mrs. Roger Smith of Gardner, MA, December, 1944. The picture was taken by Woodward friend, educator and amateur photographer F. Earl Williams. Williams was once the principal of Gardner High School and so we believe he had something to do with arranging this rare exhibition of Woodward's paintings in a private residence. In all, 12 paintings and two chalk drawing were displayed. Williams only photographed 11 of them that we know. The three missing photographs are New England Impressions*, Winter Farms, and From the North Window*. The paintings photographed are as follows in pairs: Portrait of a Shadow andFrom a Mountain Farm*, April Sun and Frost on the Window, A Winter Song* and The Big Chimney*, there is the chalk drawing The Road Home, the oil A Winter Afternoon and other chalk Mountain Meadow together and then Tranquility, and The Little Red Barn* as singles.

And what an exhibition! Worthy of any New York or Boston Gallery, it featured a number of Woodward's most exhibited editorial paintings going back as far as 1935. [noted by asterisk*] Two of the paintings hanging at the exhibit, A Winter Song and New England Impression previously hung at the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco and the 1939 New York World's Fair respectively.