Featured Artwork: From the Pasture Top

The Top of The Pasture

Woodward did not keep records of his chalk drawings and unfortunately made to Painting diary entry regarding what must surely be its oil painting equivalent, The Top of The Pasture, seen to the right. The Top of The Pasture would be one of Woodward's last paintings of the H40" x W50" canvases. After 1932, he would shift to exclusively using H36" x W42" canvases for his large paintings.

While it is a disappointment to not have Woodward's comments on this scene. We do have a wonderful review of The Top of The Pasture:

Boston Sunday Post, May 19, 1929:

"'Top of the Pasture' with a pair of luxuriantly-leaved maples bowing slightly in the breeze, silhouetted against a glorious blue sky with fluffy clouds above the distant deeper blue of rolling hills, reminds us of the story of the man who left his New Hampshire hilltop with his view of Kearsarge, Monadnock and other mountains to seek his fortune in a mid-western city, but who came back shortly with the one laconic plaint- --'he could not see off'."

Note the year is the same for both this drawing and the oil... the oil painting would exhibit at Woodward's inaugural show at the Myles Standish Hotel Gallery, in Boston.

more on this artwork in the scrapbook

Additional Notes

Springfield Republican, 12 Dec. 1929
by Jeanette Matthews

Jeanette Matthews, Spring. Rep. 11 Dec, 1929:

"Then there is 'Peru Mountain,' 'From the Heights,' 'The Sea of Hills,' 'From the Pasture Top,' each deserving more detailed account in this group than belongs to what the tourist might call scenery..."

Springfield Republican, 14 Dec. 1929

"....From the Pasture Top, presents a delightfully romantic conception of rugged New England."

The Pynchon Gallery Exhibition is one of the few exhibitions that featured Woodward's "Crayon Drawings." As many as 13 were reported to be exhibited and this website is not aware of any exhibit that featured more than this number. The Deerfield Academy, 1932 Exhibition featured 10 drawings.

Regarding the
Chalk Drawings

The following is an excerpt from, "An Artist of his Time", a lecture, hosted by the Friends of RSW, on RSW by Peter Trippi, editor-in-chief, Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, which also did a feature article on RSW. CLICK HERE to view the Article

"...the pastel works - they're just fantastic. And I'm afraid that they photograph very well but you don't really appreciate the difficulty of making them until you see them up close. That as you know with pastel, you have to be very very good to make it work, because it hard to correct a mistake. With oil paint it's much easier to cover over the error. But these are really really spectacular."

October 4, 2014
Peter Trippi, editor-in-chief
Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine