RSW's Diary Comments

Baltimore Oriole and its nest.
Image courtesy of the Illinois Raptor Center

Painted about 1940. A long flat winter still-life arranged on the studio north window shelf, the snowy faint winter landscape showing through the window itself at the left hand side (gray curtains at the windows instead of the accustomed red), at the far right the frame and edge of a canvas showing in my display corner; on the shelf in between is grouped the still life of a tin pan of hickory and butternuts (with nutcracker on the shelf) my owl Majolica pitcher holding dried beech leaves, a bird's nest on a branch, a small dark blue glass vase with a pink paper inside it etc. etc.."

Editor's Note:

For this painting, we have many questions. The main question is if there are two paintings of this subject because the picture we have above does not match the sepia print used for years on the website. The painting appearing in Woodward's "display corner" in the image above is Portrait of a Shadow and the sepia is a winter heath pasture scene.

Portrait of a Shadow, c. 1930
RSW said of this painting, "A canvas I have loved
myself and admired more than any other I ever made."

The painting above has on its stretcher, the name Winter Pleasures, with its size, 20" x 40", and a price of $450.00, all in Woodward's handwriting. The sepia print's label appears to be written by someone else, either Dr. Mark or his wife Barbara. Whatever is in Woodward's own hand trumps everything else, leaving us with this question, Are they the same canvas or two canvases?

For some context we need to explain that its original owner is the same person who also owns Portrait of a Shadow, Ms. Garbose. Did she asked Woodward to make an entirely new painting or did he simply take the original canvas and alter it for her thus linking the two paintings together? It is clever, right? A nice personal touch. What we do not know is how difficult it is to pull something like that off and have it still look nice... ⮟ continues below ⮟

The sepia print labeled 'Winter Pleasures' does not match the canvas above for the display corner painting.

⮝ Here you can see the stretcher in the back with RSW's
handwriting naming the painting, etc. The fact a size and
price are offered and as seen in the lower image that it has
an item number and repeat of its size in the corner indi-
cates that it DID exhibit somewhere that required it. We
simply do not know where. There is no other record.⮟

To the left are our images of the back stretcher with Woodward's handwriting. In the upper right hand corner is an item number and size in someone else's handwriting indicating to us that this painting exhibited somewhere. It could be a one-man show because then the item number would be unnecessary. Item numbers are used for large exhibits like the annual Art Week event in Boston's Jordan Marsh Gallery, or the Southern Vermont Artist Association event held the week leading up to Labor Day in Manchester, VT. There is the National Academy or Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City.

The reason this is a big deal is because when there is a sepia print it usually means the painting exhibited. If the sepia does not match the painting, one of them is named wrong or there are two paintings. Unfortunately, none of this has answered any questions, so we must go with the two paintings theory and assume Dr. Mark believed the painting shown in the sepia was Winter Pleasures. The reason for this mistake by Dr. Mark could be attributed to his familiarity with the canvas being that it was made during his time working for Woodward and old enough to drive the artist and spend a lot of time together. He just overlooked the inconsistency of the display piece.

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Demonstrating Dr. Mark's familiarity with this subject he mentions a little antidote about the nuts in the painting. Apparently, according to Dr. Mark, the painting was dubbed, "Ray's Nuts" for the nuts seen in the picture. A little humor between Woodward and the young man.

One final thing to point out. Ms. Garbose was introduced to Woodward by his friend F. Earl Williams. A graduate of Smith College (1932), she was once a teacher at Gardner (MA) High School where Williams was the principle before he left there for an administrative position at the University of Pennsylvania.

⮞ Read the Scrapbook story about the North Window