Quick Reference

Time Period:
Painted in 1943 - 44.

Location:
Back of Redgate Studio

Medium:
Oil on Canvas

Type:
Landscape

Category:
Brooks, Ponds, Rivers

Size:
24 X 36

Exhibited:
Home of Mr. & Mrs. Roger Smith, '44

Purchased:
Mrs. Roger R. Smith

Provenance:
N/A

Noteworthy:

"A canvas very perfect, technically." RSW

Related Links

Featured Artwork: Tranquility

RSW's Diary Comments

Tranquility Sepia
Tranquility Sepia

"Painted in 1943 - 44. An ice rimmed black winter snowbound stream flowing into dark tangled winter woods at evening time (just a glint of sunset showing through the tree boles and slightly reflecting in the stream), a heavy clump of winter beech tangle to the right of the canvas with clusters of the winter beech leaves (flesh colored) topped by an occasional touch of snow. A new canvas I made from a similar theme out of 'Redgate' woods in early days (the canvas owned by Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. Lee of Manchester, Vt., being one of them). Composed and painted in the studio from an old canvas (25 x 30) after which I destroyed the old canvas. Bought from the studio in the fall of 1945 by Mrs. Roger R. Smith of 75 Elm Street, Gardner, Mass. (who owns 3 other of my canvases) and named by her Tranquility. A canvas very perfect, technically."

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...



Additional Notes

Evening Mists
Evening Mists, another "re-paint" of a
Quintessential Redgate painting done in 1945

This painting is one of a number of "re-paintings" Woodward made between 1938 to 1945 of old canvases he had saved since his early Redgate years (1917 - 1922). The old paintings were saved because he liked the subject matter but was not quite satisfied with it for one reason or another.

We are the better for it! It is a treat to see a Quintessential Redgate painting that it NOT a true Redgate painting but made long after Woodward left the heavily impressionistic impasti-style behind him for the soothing, blended and soft realism of his mature years.

What's more is these paintings give us a glimpse into the "glow" of these paintings not always perserved in the originals. Many of Woodward's early "dark woods" paintings yellowed, then darkened as they aged due to a varnish he used to perserve the paintings. This vanished also shrank and hardened over time and became very brittle causing some of the cracking you may see in some of his early paintings.


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The 1944 Mr. & Mrs. Roger Smith Exhibition:

Winter Song and A Mountain Farm hanging
Tranquility
hanging in the home of Roger
Smith for a private exhibition

To the right: is a photograph of Tranquility 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. This painting however, was NOT for sale. It had already been purchased by the Gardner High School, class of 1939, as a gift to the school.

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 and A Mountain Farm, April Sun and Frost on the Window, Portrait of a Shadow and From a Mountain Farm, A Winter Song* and The Big Chimney*, then there is the chalk drawing The Road Home, the oil A Winter Afternoon and other chalk Mountain Meadow together and then The Little Red Barn as another solo image.

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 an 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.