"Painted around 1930 or '31. Painted at Marlboro, VT of the rare old church there, built in revolutionary times. Made this 40 x 50 at the spot in the car. Exhibited very generally about the country. One of the very few of the church canvases gotten down to Macbeth's(*) in time for Mr. Francis B. Garvan to see before his sudden and untimely death. He bought it and presented it to the Yale Museum of Fine Arts in New Haven, Conn. where it hangs in their permanent collection--- the only one of many of mine which were to hang there--- had not Mr. Garvan died. A year after I painted this, the old church burned and my painting of it seen at the Grand Central Art Galleries, was used partly as pattern to build a new but smaller replica in Marlboro."
So much of the circumstances surrounding this painting and its relationship to the Mabel B. Garvan Collection held
by Yale University as well as the degree of the relationship between Woodward and Francis Garvan remains confusing.Enduring New
England was painted in 1930, a year or less before the church in the painting was destoyed by fire. It exhibits for years at the usual
galleries and schools many of Woodward's depression-era editorial paintings hang. From the first exhibit at the Grand Central Galleries in
New York City in 1931, it gains noteriety when the architect charged with the re-build of the church sees the painting at the exhibition. Yet,
it doesn't get the attention of Mr. Garvan until it arrives at the Macbeth Galleries (NYC) in 1936? He then purchases it immediately to be
added to the collection he and his wife Mabel are compiling to give to Yale. But he fails to see the other paintings made because they do
not arrive in time? He dies and his widow, Mabel, refuses to honor the "commission", leading to a number of questions:
When was the idea that led to a
commission of other churches conceived?
Was there a contract? How frequently
did Garvan and Woodward talk?
Did they talk? Was there some coordination
of the subjects/churches?
If there was an agreement, did Woodward
receive any money up front?
Was Mrs. Ada Small Moore involved in
any way being that her collection went to Yale too.
These questions and others are addressed in our "Painting Story" essay on the Garvan commission.
Enduring New England is the only painting to be actually purchased by Garvin for the Mabel B. Garvan Collection. It remains in the Yale University collections
and resides in a private office in the school's administrative offices.
"...The largest has been hung over the fireplace and is called Enduring New England. It shows a village church and common and a few houses and bares striking resemblance to a scene at Marlboro, Vt., although it might be almost any typical New England village."
This painting is one of 12 oil paintings mentioned in the article to the right and one of 20 oil paintings and 10 chalk drawings exhibited throughout the brand new dormitory on the Academy's campus. The exhibit was so popular with potential new students and their parents, Deerfield's Headmaster at the time, Frank Boyden, asked if it could be extended through June to include the school's alumni and reunion weekends and closed on July 3, 1932. There were two paintings committed to other exhibitions but Woodward accomodated the request and replaced the committed paintings with replacements.
Woodward's relationship with the Myles Standish Hotel in Boston extends from the earliest days of the hotel's opening in 1928
through its dimise around 1944. His first appearance there was in its Gallery six months after its opening and continued every year for the next 11 years.
There was a total of 23 known exhibitions in 13 of the 15 years of the hotel's operation. Even the two years he didn't have an "exhibition" per se, a painting
usually hung in the hotel's lobby or dining room. In fact, the Boston Tercentennial Gold Medal winning painting
New England Drama hung, on loan from Woodward, in the hotel's lobby for years.
The hotel itself was really a victim of the
depression which began not even a year into its opening and continued to plague the high-end hotel throughout the 1930s. It was unable to recover when
the ecomony eventually turned around. It would seem that the onset of WW2 was its eventual death blow.
Illustrating Woodward's close
relationship with the establishment. In 1944 he supplied the hotel 20 oil paintings and 6 chalks of a number of his most cherished paintings for what we
suspect was the hotel's swan song. Two years later the hotel would open as the first dormitory for the traditionally commuter school, Boston University.
A number of the paintings were seemingly borrowed from a number of Boston-area owners along with some of Woodward's favorites from his own personal
collection. Enduring New England was among the 20 paintings exhibited which would mean that Yale University would have had to permit it
and loaned it to the hotel specifically for the show. Of all the paintings to be exhibited, it is this painting that suggest the importance of the show.