Featured Artwork: Winter Slope

"Painted prior to 1930. An upright painting of an open woodland slope, painted in the Hog Hollow pasture of the place above Johnson's where Luther Purinton once lived. A winter sled track into the snow, blue shadows of a big maple slanting down to the right. At the background (upper 2/3 of the canvas) snow laden woodland of deciduous and evergreen trees, into which the road track disappears. I made a chalk drawing (of which there is a photograph) of the same subject, really making the painting from the chalk. Bought by Miss Ann Morgan and Miss Elizabeth Adams, teachers of chemistry and biology at Mt. Holyoke College, and hung in their very beautiful home in South Hadley. They also own two of my finest chalks."

Comments in a notebook by RSW:

"Purinton's pasture..." "Sold Jan. 14, 1933 to Miss A. Morgan and Miss Elizabeth Adams at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Mass."

Plaque honoring Adams & Morgan

A Close up of RSW's signature

From the stretcher, the name:
Winter Slope, its size, 25 x 30 and price $600.

RSW's name in pencil.
It appears to be done in his hand.

In the Scrapbook, under Painting Stories, there is a page relating the difficulty identifying paintings particulary when RSW re-painted similar subjects and used multiple names or when he painted several versions of the same subject and used a common name relating them together. Winter Slope is a painting, in which RSW painted several similar paintings but used different names. The story is titled, A Tale of Two Winters and shows all the versions of this painting RSW made as well as their respective names.

An article reviewing the 1928
J.H. Miller Galleries Exhibition

A clipping introducing Woodward's
show at the Littlecote Gallery, Utica, NY

Above: Springfield Union, April 1928, by Jeanette Matthews

"....a lovely canvas. It is just a a bit of winter woods with a blue in the pines and shadows that is all but magic."

Springfield Daily Republican, Springfield, MA: Sat. April 28, 1928

"...Winter Slope, showing a group of pine trees on a hillside covered deep with drifting snow."

A picture of Winter Slope from a clipping

Clipping for Myles Standish Exhibition 1929