Featured Artwork: September Pastoral, #2 — now known as When Autumn Comes

• Woodward did not keep records of the pastels he called "chalk drawings."

When Autumn Comes, 1943
We believe the pastel above is the "copy" that went to
the Pettises referred to in the letter to F. Earl Williams.

Excerpt from a letter to F. Earl Williams from RSW dated, November 22, 1943:

"Last week I made a perfect copy of the Tognarelli chalk September Pastoral -- (which goes to the Tognarelli's tomorrow) so as to have it as a surprise when the Pettises come up in December. I never copied a chalk, in chalk, before. The results were splendid."

Editor's Note:

When Dr. Mark created the name September Pastoral #2, it was for a lack of knowing what else to call it. It is clear that two pastels where made by Woodward from his letter to F. Earl Williams in 1943. He would also make an oil canvas from from one of the pastels according to the painting diary remarks made for A Clear September Day. He could not have used the pastel he named September Pastoral because as he explains in the letter that Mr. Tognarelli was picking up his pastel the next day after the letter! The second pastel, the copy of the first, is going to Woodward's friends the Pettises more than a month away! So in all likelihood, the canvas was actually made from the second pastel.

A Clear September Day (c. 1943)

Dr. Mark created this name and page before the discovery of the pastel When Autumn Comes for which we are now convinced is the rightful name of the second pastel that went to Mr. Pettis.

The diary entry from RSW's painting diary for the canvas, A Clear September Day:

"A painting made from a chalk drawing of the same composition and subject, owned by Mr. Ralph Tognarelli. Tangled group of birch trees filled in right half of the canvas, green mowing beyond, over which bands of pasture land, topped by a nearby mountain (back of Shelburne Tower Mountain) all with a brilliant green blue Sept. sky..."

Woodward and Earl Williams, in Heath, MA.

We have for our purposes struck out the part about the pastel being Mr. Tognerelli's. It is not possible. We are certain Woodward would have told his friend Earl Williams about the oil painting in his letter cited above.

Given Woodward's description of the scene from the diary remarks above and our ability to place the oil painting over the pastel, When Autumn Comes, to match as well as anything else we have ever done. We have concluded the the second pastel, the one Dr. Mark did not have a name for, the one he gave to his friends, the Pettises is When Autumn Comes. We are certain no one will ever find a pastel painting named "September Pastoral #2." Still, to honor Dr. Mark and the history of the website's development, we are keeping the artwork page active as an example of the progress we have made.