RSW's Diary Comments

• There is no entry for this painting in the painting diary.

F. Earl Williams posing with Woodward
in front of the Heath Pasture House. The picture
was probably taken by Williams wife, Ruth.

The photograph above was found in the Deerfield Academy's Boyden Library Archives relating to the American Studies Group project to catalog the complete works of Woodward. It is not yet known if this painting exhibited at the corresponding exhibition at the Hilson Gallery in May of 1970.

You will note above that we have the time period being 1937, despite evidence that a painting named Hill Road exhibited twice in 1931. We believe there may be another work of art with the same name making it a total of 3 pieces named Hill Road. However, until the third painting is confirmed we will keep the 1931 listings here. It is hard to believe the same painting went un-exhibited for 6 years and then reappeared suddenly to exhibit 8 more times.

Editor's Note & Addendum:

When we discovered the picture above in the Deerfield Academy's Boyden Library Archives in 2018 and created this page in April of that year. We had not taken into account Woodward's friend Earl Williams involvement both in his avocation as an amateur photographer or that he was a key contributer to the 1969 -'70 project that culminated to the accompanying exhibition.

While it is still very possible that there is a third painting sharing this name. It is equally likely, and perhaps more so, that the missing years this painting did not exhibit at all was because the Williams had it in their home in Bryn Mawr, PA, when Earl was with the U. of Pennsylvania. What now brought us to this possibility is the last showing of the painting - Gardner High School. Williams was once the school's principal. It is also very possible Williams selected this painting as one of the three he was permitted to select from Woodward's private collection after his death and this is why the image above was in the Boyden Archive.

We do not have any other references to Hill Road in RSW's painting diaries except for the 1946 painting A Hill Road painted in North Heath (MA) on Adamsville Road.