Featured Artwork: Through The Hills in May

Label from the back of the frame.

None.

Index Card from the Springfield Museum Archives

"Painted in Apple Valley, Ashfield, Mass."

This painting hangs in the main gallery of the George Walter Vincent Smith Gallery of the Springfield Museum quadrant system. It was purchased by Mr. G.W.V. Smith himself from the 1922 J.H. Miller Gallery exhibit for $250.00, along with Under the Winter Moon.

At the time of its purchase, Woodward already had two other paintings hanging in Mr. Smith's fine collection, Early Moonlight and In Apple Blossom Time. We do not know what happened to either of those paintings. The museum archive had no record of them. However, we do know they were there, one, from RSW's reference to them in letters and two, newspaper articles.

Index Card from the Springfield Museum Archives

Through the Hills in May was damaged while in storage at the museum. According to the report (to the left) from March 15^th 1969 by museum expert Alan Thielker there were two tears found in the canvas. One in the lower left and the other in the upper right. The painting was repaired the same year.

Part of the Springfield Museum's archive of RSW are letters between Woodward & J.H. Miller, and also Woodward & Mr. Smith regarding the purchase price of Under the Winter Moon. The letters, though courteous, are quite contentious regarding Mr. Smith's desire to buy the painting at a heavily marked down price and so it is worth noting here that Through the Hills in May was listed for $450.00 and sold to Mr. Smith for a little more than half that price.

This would all occur about 6 months before Woodward's first studio fire (Redgate) and the letters provide a great amount of detail into Woodward's monthly expenses at the time, his financial health and the amount of time he spent on his large 40 x 50 paintings.

Back stretcher with sketch

Recently, the painting, Across the Valley, came up for auction and on the back of its stretcher was what we believe was a preliminary charcoal sketch of this painting, only we believe the sketch is from a lower position on the road. You can see more of the top of the house in the distance.