Artist Robert Strong Woodward (1885-1957) called Buckland, Massachusetts home for the better part of 47 years. He was born May 11, 1885, in Northampton, MA, but only stayed there until 1890 when the family began a number of years moving throughout the country following his father’s work, until they finally settled in Los Angeles, CA in 1905.
He once called his education, "catch as catch can," since they moved so often, and it would always be an insecurity for him. Woodward fell in love with Buckland during the summers, as he spent most every year of his youth with his mother Mary at his grandparent’s home on East Buckland Road and with other family, The Wellses, on their Pine Brook Farm on Ashfield Road. His experience as a child would leave an indelible imprint on Woodward.
After more than 10 years of moving from place to place his life settled a bit more after the age of 15. In Schenectady, he attended the private Union Classical Institute and made friends with a young lady that would have a transformative effect on Woodward, Helen Ives Schermerhorn. Helen would become his confidante and life-long friend. While only in Schenectady for two years, the friendships he made really stabilized him. When his father’s work took him to Peoria, Illinois he attended a preparatory school where he furthered his interest and schooling in literature. He wanted to be an artist, an illustrator in publishing (thus the Literature scholarship), unbeknownst to his father, who wanted him to attend Stanford and for engineering. He is a bibliophile, a book lover and avid reader. He would be a collector of books.
Woodward had always taken as many art classes as his schedule could bear, and it is known from his letters to Helen in Schenectady that his only dream is to attend the Museum of Fine Art School in Boston (MFAS). During his studies of youth, he took a course on Japanese Art, falling in love with the art and culture of the East. Because of this fascination, he schedules a trip to Japan. On Labor Day weekend, 1906, he is weeks away from this trip to Japan. He returns home in the morning from camping with friends and has breakfast with his parents. Woodward is the first to excuse himself from the table to get ready for the day's events, which include attending the first ever Japanese Culture Festival in Venice, CA. While getting undressed, his sweater snags his holstered 32 caliber revolver, pulls it from his body pointing directly into his left breast, and discharges accidentally. The sweater was pulled over the holstered gun sometime on their long trip home from camping in the mountains.
He would be in critical condition for at least a week in the Good Samaritan Hospital and stayed another two and a half months, being discharged just before Thanksgiving. He is paralyzed from his sternum, down. This distinction would prove critical because the paralysis is above the stomach and Woodward would suffer with digestive issues for the remainder of his life, ultimately dying of stomach cancer. Initially the doctors remained hopeful he would get movement in his legs back, but by the summer of 1907, he tells Helen, that he is going to give up that hope, no longer discuss his health, and moves forward. The bullet remained lodged in his eleventh vertebrae.
A year later he is living on his own in Redondo Beach, CA, making his way as a commercial artist designing bookplates and other heraldic devices with a side gig in Home Decor Arts & Crafts making inspirational Illuminations and selling them from the popular Redondo Beach Pavilion his father helped develop. Four years in California getting his life back on track, Woodward is accepted to the MFAS. His friend Joseph Cowell solicits the help of his cousin, Boston socialite, Mary Minnie Eliot, to raise the funds necessary to cover his travel to Boston, his tuition, and housing. Cowell, in the meantime, studied elsewhere before joining Woodward to be his roommate, act as his attendant, and nursemaid while the two studied at the school.
It was a very admiral effort by both young men. Rob, 25 at the time and Joseph, 23, but the daily care Woodward needs is far too much for someone without some proper training, complicated by the lack of handicap accessibility at that time. Woodward and Joseph lived in an apartment near campus that was on the second floor. Joseph is athletic and in good shape, but Woodward is a large young man (over 6') and Joseph is not. Carrying Woodward up and down those stairs, and then retrieving the wheelchair is difficult enough, let-alone moving through the streets. In a letter from Joe’s cousin, Dr. Lawrence Lunt described the situation as such- "Joe was undertaking to look after Rob, nurse, cook, housekeeper and wheel him back and forth from the school every day. It was an impossible arrangement and didn't last for more than perhaps two months." After this time Woodward would arrive at the Wells' family home, the Pine Brook Farm, sometime in November of 1910. He is very sick and in need of greater care than he or his friend Joseph were able to supply.
It is not known how long it took Woodward to get back to good enough health to start thinking about his future. But sometime between 1911 and 1913, he is back to trying to support himself by earning a living doing what earned him enough money in Redondo Beach to be relatively independent. He would also, in this time, move out of the Well's family home to rent an apartment on Bridge Street in Shelburne, owned by his nurse, Julia Cowles, who was critical in his healthcare.
An unused dairy shed close to Ashfield Road on the west end of the farm's property would be converted to a studio he would name "Redgate." He has business cards made and adds customized greeting cards and invitations, announcements, etc. to his repertoire along with continuing to make bookplates, heraldic (family crest designs), and illustrations. His side gig in the arts & crafts home decor business is also continued. In 1913, at an arts & crafts show in Boston, Woodward is praised for his "painted glass" work in a review by Boston Globe art critic A.J. Philpott. This is Philpott's first known review of Woodward. Around 1914 - '15, he moved out of the apartment he rented behind his nurse's house in Shelburne Falls and the returned to Buckland. He rented a shack on the western edge of the Hiram Woodward property he called the Burnham Cottage. A shack when he came to rent it, he used his unique ability to take the rundown and turn it into something beautiful - a trait he demonstrates time and again throughout his life. Aside from Redgate and the Burnham Cottage, he would renovate and restore three other neglected places.
Woodward would continue to work as a commercial artist for about 6 years with some success. His known bookplate clients are a venerable list of who's who of prominent and industrious Americans, including for financier J.P. Morgan. These connections came from his advocate and patron Minnie Eliot. He would also design a number of illustrations for famed engraver John Hudson Ewell. Commercial work was ultimately not suitable to meet the stark needs of his high cost of living, as it was a poor business model for a paraplegic living in rural western Massachusetts, far from the centers of publishing. In 1917, he would begin to refuse new projects in commercial work and set his sights of becoming a professional painter. He made the commitment to becoming a professional landscapist. He would also move from the quaint cottage and rent the main house of the property he would eventually buy in May of 1923.
Most of his pre-professional paintings are under 20 inches in width or length, most commonly 20" x 14" in size. From Woodward's perspective and what he wants to accomplish professionally, he apparently feels that his professional standard needs to be much larger in scale than 20 inches. Aside from the larger size allowing him to paint scenes to his satisfaction, it is suspected that he felt that his work needed to command a certain price for him to earn a sufficient living. But price will become less important to him over the years.
Through the years he usually on a 25" x 30" canvas, though he has one as small as 23" x 23," an unnamed impressionistic landscape of Apple Valley in Ashfield, and a large number of very big 50" x 40" paintings. The unusually high number of 50" x 40" paintings so early in his career suggest to us Woodward was trying to hit a homerun financially as they would bring a bigger price tag. It is reported that he would sell his first painting in July of 1918.
Woodward is also unsure if his work was up to professional standards and good enough to be shown in the professional world and makes it a point to visit with renown American Impressionist and current resident of neighboring Colrain, MA, Gardner Symons. Symons who has had a long and distinguished career was well known as being generous and available to young artist as a teacher and/or mentor. Symons is impressed with Woodward's work, so much so, he encourages Woodward to submit a painting ( The Golden Barn ) to the upcoming National Academy of Design's (NAD) annual Spring Exhibition in New York City. He submits the painting and is accepted by the Academy's jury.
At the same time the Boston Art Club (BAC) holds its first ever special, non-traditional exhibition, "New England Series," show featuring new and modern artists from the region. It is unknown how Woodward learned of it, but he submits two paintings, an oil painting and a pastel painting he calls "chalk drawings." Both are accepted and he is mentioned in two Boston newspapers applauding his entries giving greater praise to the chalk drawing. It is important to point how fortunate this opportunity is to Woodward's career. He would probably would have otherwise had to labor years before being permitted to exhibit at the BAC. Woodward would exhibit in this show every year of its existence.
We do not know much more about Woodward's relationship with Symons, but the next year in the NAD's exhibition program, Symons given New York City address is also listed as Woodward's address. Moveover, in a remarkable triumph for Franklin County and Western Massachusetts in general, Woodward would first prize in the Hallgarten Catagory for best artist under the age of 35, and Gardner would win first prize in the Altman Category for best overall painting of the entire show. Consider the significance of this, that in March of 1919, the two top honors awarded at the NAD went to Woodward and Symons, two artist living just miles apart, painting the same Western Mass landscape!
Woodward's proximity to Symons, as well as the BAC loosening its conservative traditions to include modern artist, in hindsight were both kismet moments for him. Woodward's life is a series of fate meeting destiny moments that goes both ways - there are the Godwinks like Symons and the BAC, and Godsmacks, like his accident and what is to come in just a few years.
Being in the Heart of New England, both metaphorically and topographically meant that New York City became his bread and butter and will pay the bills, and Boston is the jelly to spread on top. Most of his honors come the Boston circle but he would go on to sell far more paintings in NYC.
Woodward's Hallgarten Prize for the painting Between Setting Sun and Rising Moon catapults Woodward to instant success just two years after he begins his professional career. He is invited to exhibit at numerous museums and several galleries buy his works, paving way for his first prominent one-man show at The Macbeth Galleries in NYC, famed and controversial for focusing solely and distinctively on American artists.
The trajectory of Woodward’ artwork started as being Quintessential Redgate paintings. They are all Buckland-based paintings of the interior woods immediately behind Woodward's Redgate studio running along the Pine Brook stream. A quintessential Redgate painting is one painted at dusk or early evening, when Woodward is most likely alone, his nurse or attendant having gone home for the night. The paintings are very atmospheric, meaning they are circumstantial, based on the state of the time, and lit using a combination of natural light seeping through the trees and the glow of his lamp. They are dark, with the trees either silhouetted in the light of the setting sun, and the glow of his lamp or the light of the full moon. The work done from Redgate represents Woodward's first experiments with light in its natural expression. This is a critical distinction that differentiates him from that of impressionist who focus on the impressions of shape and form. His early style of brush is undoubtedly impressionistic but holds a realism unlike that found in impressionism. This will prove valuable later when Woodward intentionally changes his style in search for what would later become his signature look. There is also so much symbolism in these paintings that it is hard to cover it all without spoiling the mystery of it. Woodward is both lost and found here, perhaps unexpectedly, and it is a good place to be for the creative type.
What does this have to do with Redgate, and more specifically Buckland? While Woodward lays his head for a couple of years in Shelburne, then the Burnham Cottage and eventually the main house of the Hiram Woodward farm, it is Redgate that is "home" to him. The bulk of his early success is based on these early Redgate paintings. All of them reflect the intimacy to which he relates to those surroundings. At this time Woodward is getting comfortable, making a home, and yet he does not know where this will lead him. Mind you, Woodward is still relatively homebound. He has his horse and buggy, or sleigh, to take him to his spots to paint his landscapes but he is not traveling far. He has yet to venture to Heath, or Southern Vermont and Halifax. He is painting locally.
There are not a lot of surviving early landscape paintings. Not only are they now over a hundred years old but Woodward was still learning. In Woodward's early years, he used varnish to preserve his paintings. This was a mistake. Varnish not only yellows as it ages, but it also become very stiff and brittle over time causing craquelure, the dense cracking of the pigment. This error is also what has caused many of the dark greens and other subtle tones to blacken in his Redgate paintings that remain.
The other reason so few paintings survived today is two-fold. First, he focused all of his attention on making 50 paintings for William Macbeth to choose the 25 best of the lot. This probably took him the better part of 1921 through 1922 for an exhibit set for January of 1923, meaning he was not making many paintings to sell prior to the exhibit with Macbeth. He probably made more than 50 but some of those pieces did not make his final cut.
Also, on December 22, 1922, the night before those paintings were to be shipped to New York City, it is cold and the Redgate studio was packed full of the shipping containers. Concerned the paintings would freeze overnight, running the risk they would crack and chip, Woodward added extra wood to the wood burning stove inadvertently producing a super-heated and combustible atmosphere for the chemicals also stored in the packed studio. A fire ignited, burning the entire studio and all of its contents, except one painting which was saved. In the end, he lost everything including any additional paintings that missed the cut. This accident not only left him without a studio from which to work, the loss of work, but also angered Macbeth, who held a grudge for nearly a decade, because of the cancelled show and as well as it’s initial establishment. Sincerity is a hallmark of Woodward's persevering spirit. It would become what he is known for but at this time he is still somewhat immature and probably clouded by his fast and sudden success. In dealing with Macbeth, rather than being honest with him and explaining that he would prefer his work stand on its own merit without having potential buyers be influenced by his obvious handicap, he instead said that a handicap kept him in the quiet of the hill. Woodward would not have his first one-man show in New York City for another decade after the Redgate fire.
So now Woodward is thirty-seven years old, his life's work is in ruin, and his reputation tarnished badly. Since his accident in 1906, only 4 of those years were truly productive in the sense of achievement and independence. This event would put his life on hold for another 4 years as he scrambled for a new home, in need of his friends to rescue him once again financially, and suffering from another undisclosed illness that was most likely the result of financial privation and possibly depression brought on by grief, like when he was a student at the MFAS.
His losses would be enormous. In just the paintings alone, the financial loss is around the neighborhood of $300,000 in today's money. But it is his reputation that would hinder him further costing him more. In fact, his first true one-man featured show would not happen for another 3 years, 11 months, and 9 days from the date of the fire. It would not be in New York, but Boston. It would not appear in a gallery, but rather a private residence of a neighbor of his long-time advocate and patron Minnie Eliot.
While some of his previous misfortune may have been by his own hand, perhaps this event had such an impact on him that he makes a concerted effort to change, to hunker down and find the stability he always desired. He would do it with humility and modesty that he only pretended to have prior, by living up to and by the doctrine of the philosophy he read, studied and admired- misfortune is very different than being unfortunate. He was at his core a naturalist and he would adopt its precepts and weave them into his everyday life by making it a lifestyle. And although the next four years would be the least productive of his professional painting career, he would use this time to prepare himself to rise once again.
Thus far, Woodward's relationship with Buckland is not fully expressed. That will change along with many other things in the years to come. For now, it appears that Woodward ending up in Buckland was simply a matter of circumstance and convenience, as if he had no place else to go. However, while we can't say if Woodward had not been paralyzed and then able to finish his art studies in Boston he would have come to Buckland. We can say that now that he is there, there is no place else he'd rather be.
Up to this point, the only thing that feels like his is the Redgate studio. Aside from the great loss financially, the significance of Redgate to Woodward as a sanctuary cannot be understated. It was his to do with what he could where he created an aesthetic and atmosphere unique to his personal style that he would apply to all of his future homes and studios. Redgate's importance to his work is demonstrated in his attempt later to return to the woods behind where it once sat and continue to paint the wooded, dark, interior paintings.
In his first exhibition upon his return to public exhibitions, 14 Quintessential Redgate paintings are shown, but only four of them sell. One could assume that they were missing something contained in the paintings painted prior to the fire, which is why he kept a number of them in storage for so long only to repaint them later destroying the originals. There may be another factor as to why these paintings did not sell after the fire. The market is changing. The demand for art in a distinctly American theme and style is gaining traction. It will lead to what is referred to as the American Art Scene Movement (1925 - 1940) and Woodward will not only lean into this change in the appetites of the market, but he will also thrive and find his greatest success
First, he will need a new home and studio. Again, with the help of friends and family, he will buy the long-neglected Hiram Woodward Farm property of which he is currently renting its main house. The nearly 9-acre property includes the main house, a large shed, a barn, a horse shed and stable, as well as the Burnham Cottage he rented previously. First, he will need to ready his new studio in the back of the barn, and he will then put all his love of this first true home into its’ restoration to become a showcase of the classic New England Farm with a reputation so great, people will drive miles out of their way to pass it. This focus on renovation, or distraction, is perhaps why he only exhibited 7 paintings over a nearly four-year period.
He has just turned 38 years old. Woodward wouldn't know that he is on the other side, the down-hill portion of his life, but he does know he is not going to get many more chances either and he acts accordingly.
More to follow, which will pick up in 1924 and cover the remainder of Woodward's career and life in Buckland. It is really when his love for Western Massachusetts and Buckland begins to show in his work and subject matter, especially as the nation falls into its’ Great Depression, when Woodward turns his attention to its people and the connection they have to their home. Also touched on will be Woodward's evolution and how his love for poetry, and the romantic in him elevates his work to true poeticism without crossing the line into the romance that dominated his early career. This is important to the signature look and style that is to become his trademark.
He once called his education, "catch as catch can," since they moved so often, and it would always be an insecurity for him. Woodward fell in love with Buckland during the summers, as he spent most every year of his youth with his mother Mary at his grandparent’s home on East Buckland Road and with other family, The Wellses, on their Pine Brook Farm on Ashfield Road. His experience as a child would leave an indelible imprint on Woodward.
After more than 10 years of moving from place to place his life settled a bit more after the age of 15. In Schenectady, he attended the private Union Classical Institute and made friends with a young lady that would have a transformative effect on Woodward, Helen Ives Schermerhorn. Helen would become his confidante and life-long friend. While only in Schenectady for two years, the friendships he made really stabilized him. When his father’s work took him to Peoria, Illinois he attended a preparatory school where he furthered his interest and schooling in literature. He wanted to be an artist, an illustrator in publishing (thus the Literature scholarship), unbeknownst to his father, who wanted him to attend Stanford and for engineering. He is a bibliophile, a book lover and avid reader. He would be a collector of books.
Woodward had always taken as many art classes as his schedule could bear, and it is known from his letters to Helen in Schenectady that his only dream is to attend the Museum of Fine Art School in Boston (MFAS). During his studies of youth, he took a course on Japanese Art, falling in love with the art and culture of the East. Because of this fascination, he schedules a trip to Japan. On Labor Day weekend, 1906, he is weeks away from this trip to Japan. He returns home in the morning from camping with friends and has breakfast with his parents. Woodward is the first to excuse himself from the table to get ready for the day's events, which include attending the first ever Japanese Culture Festival in Venice, CA. While getting undressed, his sweater snags his holstered 32 caliber revolver, pulls it from his body pointing directly into his left breast, and discharges accidentally. The sweater was pulled over the holstered gun sometime on their long trip home from camping in the mountains.
He would be in critical condition for at least a week in the Good Samaritan Hospital and stayed another two and a half months, being discharged just before Thanksgiving. He is paralyzed from his sternum, down. This distinction would prove critical because the paralysis is above the stomach and Woodward would suffer with digestive issues for the remainder of his life, ultimately dying of stomach cancer. Initially the doctors remained hopeful he would get movement in his legs back, but by the summer of 1907, he tells Helen, that he is going to give up that hope, no longer discuss his health, and moves forward. The bullet remained lodged in his eleventh vertebrae.
A year later he is living on his own in Redondo Beach, CA, making his way as a commercial artist designing bookplates and other heraldic devices with a side gig in Home Decor Arts & Crafts making inspirational Illuminations and selling them from the popular Redondo Beach Pavilion his father helped develop. Four years in California getting his life back on track, Woodward is accepted to the MFAS. His friend Joseph Cowell solicits the help of his cousin, Boston socialite, Mary Minnie Eliot, to raise the funds necessary to cover his travel to Boston, his tuition, and housing. Cowell, in the meantime, studied elsewhere before joining Woodward to be his roommate, act as his attendant, and nursemaid while the two studied at the school.
It was a very admiral effort by both young men. Rob, 25 at the time and Joseph, 23, but the daily care Woodward needs is far too much for someone without some proper training, complicated by the lack of handicap accessibility at that time. Woodward and Joseph lived in an apartment near campus that was on the second floor. Joseph is athletic and in good shape, but Woodward is a large young man (over 6') and Joseph is not. Carrying Woodward up and down those stairs, and then retrieving the wheelchair is difficult enough, let-alone moving through the streets. In a letter from Joe’s cousin, Dr. Lawrence Lunt described the situation as such- "Joe was undertaking to look after Rob, nurse, cook, housekeeper and wheel him back and forth from the school every day. It was an impossible arrangement and didn't last for more than perhaps two months." After this time Woodward would arrive at the Wells' family home, the Pine Brook Farm, sometime in November of 1910. He is very sick and in need of greater care than he or his friend Joseph were able to supply.
It is not known how long it took Woodward to get back to good enough health to start thinking about his future. But sometime between 1911 and 1913, he is back to trying to support himself by earning a living doing what earned him enough money in Redondo Beach to be relatively independent. He would also, in this time, move out of the Well's family home to rent an apartment on Bridge Street in Shelburne, owned by his nurse, Julia Cowles, who was critical in his healthcare.
An unused dairy shed close to Ashfield Road on the west end of the farm's property would be converted to a studio he would name "Redgate." He has business cards made and adds customized greeting cards and invitations, announcements, etc. to his repertoire along with continuing to make bookplates, heraldic (family crest designs), and illustrations. His side gig in the arts & crafts home decor business is also continued. In 1913, at an arts & crafts show in Boston, Woodward is praised for his "painted glass" work in a review by Boston Globe art critic A.J. Philpott. This is Philpott's first known review of Woodward. Around 1914 - '15, he moved out of the apartment he rented behind his nurse's house in Shelburne Falls and the returned to Buckland. He rented a shack on the western edge of the Hiram Woodward property he called the Burnham Cottage. A shack when he came to rent it, he used his unique ability to take the rundown and turn it into something beautiful - a trait he demonstrates time and again throughout his life. Aside from Redgate and the Burnham Cottage, he would renovate and restore three other neglected places.
Woodward would continue to work as a commercial artist for about 6 years with some success. His known bookplate clients are a venerable list of who's who of prominent and industrious Americans, including for financier J.P. Morgan. These connections came from his advocate and patron Minnie Eliot. He would also design a number of illustrations for famed engraver John Hudson Ewell. Commercial work was ultimately not suitable to meet the stark needs of his high cost of living, as it was a poor business model for a paraplegic living in rural western Massachusetts, far from the centers of publishing. In 1917, he would begin to refuse new projects in commercial work and set his sights of becoming a professional painter. He made the commitment to becoming a professional landscapist. He would also move from the quaint cottage and rent the main house of the property he would eventually buy in May of 1923.
Most of his pre-professional paintings are under 20 inches in width or length, most commonly 20" x 14" in size. From Woodward's perspective and what he wants to accomplish professionally, he apparently feels that his professional standard needs to be much larger in scale than 20 inches. Aside from the larger size allowing him to paint scenes to his satisfaction, it is suspected that he felt that his work needed to command a certain price for him to earn a sufficient living. But price will become less important to him over the years.
Through the years he usually on a 25" x 30" canvas, though he has one as small as 23" x 23," an unnamed impressionistic landscape of Apple Valley in Ashfield, and a large number of very big 50" x 40" paintings. The unusually high number of 50" x 40" paintings so early in his career suggest to us Woodward was trying to hit a homerun financially as they would bring a bigger price tag. It is reported that he would sell his first painting in July of 1918.
Woodward is also unsure if his work was up to professional standards and good enough to be shown in the professional world and makes it a point to visit with renown American Impressionist and current resident of neighboring Colrain, MA, Gardner Symons. Symons who has had a long and distinguished career was well known as being generous and available to young artist as a teacher and/or mentor. Symons is impressed with Woodward's work, so much so, he encourages Woodward to submit a painting ( The Golden Barn ) to the upcoming National Academy of Design's (NAD) annual Spring Exhibition in New York City. He submits the painting and is accepted by the Academy's jury.
At the same time the Boston Art Club (BAC) holds its first ever special, non-traditional exhibition, "New England Series," show featuring new and modern artists from the region. It is unknown how Woodward learned of it, but he submits two paintings, an oil painting and a pastel painting he calls "chalk drawings." Both are accepted and he is mentioned in two Boston newspapers applauding his entries giving greater praise to the chalk drawing. It is important to point how fortunate this opportunity is to Woodward's career. He would probably would have otherwise had to labor years before being permitted to exhibit at the BAC. Woodward would exhibit in this show every year of its existence.
We do not know much more about Woodward's relationship with Symons, but the next year in the NAD's exhibition program, Symons given New York City address is also listed as Woodward's address. Moveover, in a remarkable triumph for Franklin County and Western Massachusetts in general, Woodward would first prize in the Hallgarten Catagory for best artist under the age of 35, and Gardner would win first prize in the Altman Category for best overall painting of the entire show. Consider the significance of this, that in March of 1919, the two top honors awarded at the NAD went to Woodward and Symons, two artist living just miles apart, painting the same Western Mass landscape!
Woodward's proximity to Symons, as well as the BAC loosening its conservative traditions to include modern artist, in hindsight were both kismet moments for him. Woodward's life is a series of fate meeting destiny moments that goes both ways - there are the Godwinks like Symons and the BAC, and Godsmacks, like his accident and what is to come in just a few years.
Being in the Heart of New England, both metaphorically and topographically meant that New York City became his bread and butter and will pay the bills, and Boston is the jelly to spread on top. Most of his honors come the Boston circle but he would go on to sell far more paintings in NYC.
Woodward's Hallgarten Prize for the painting Between Setting Sun and Rising Moon catapults Woodward to instant success just two years after he begins his professional career. He is invited to exhibit at numerous museums and several galleries buy his works, paving way for his first prominent one-man show at The Macbeth Galleries in NYC, famed and controversial for focusing solely and distinctively on American artists.
The trajectory of Woodward’ artwork started as being Quintessential Redgate paintings. They are all Buckland-based paintings of the interior woods immediately behind Woodward's Redgate studio running along the Pine Brook stream. A quintessential Redgate painting is one painted at dusk or early evening, when Woodward is most likely alone, his nurse or attendant having gone home for the night. The paintings are very atmospheric, meaning they are circumstantial, based on the state of the time, and lit using a combination of natural light seeping through the trees and the glow of his lamp. They are dark, with the trees either silhouetted in the light of the setting sun, and the glow of his lamp or the light of the full moon. The work done from Redgate represents Woodward's first experiments with light in its natural expression. This is a critical distinction that differentiates him from that of impressionist who focus on the impressions of shape and form. His early style of brush is undoubtedly impressionistic but holds a realism unlike that found in impressionism. This will prove valuable later when Woodward intentionally changes his style in search for what would later become his signature look. There is also so much symbolism in these paintings that it is hard to cover it all without spoiling the mystery of it. Woodward is both lost and found here, perhaps unexpectedly, and it is a good place to be for the creative type.
What does this have to do with Redgate, and more specifically Buckland? While Woodward lays his head for a couple of years in Shelburne, then the Burnham Cottage and eventually the main house of the Hiram Woodward farm, it is Redgate that is "home" to him. The bulk of his early success is based on these early Redgate paintings. All of them reflect the intimacy to which he relates to those surroundings. At this time Woodward is getting comfortable, making a home, and yet he does not know where this will lead him. Mind you, Woodward is still relatively homebound. He has his horse and buggy, or sleigh, to take him to his spots to paint his landscapes but he is not traveling far. He has yet to venture to Heath, or Southern Vermont and Halifax. He is painting locally.
There are not a lot of surviving early landscape paintings. Not only are they now over a hundred years old but Woodward was still learning. In Woodward's early years, he used varnish to preserve his paintings. This was a mistake. Varnish not only yellows as it ages, but it also become very stiff and brittle over time causing craquelure, the dense cracking of the pigment. This error is also what has caused many of the dark greens and other subtle tones to blacken in his Redgate paintings that remain.
The other reason so few paintings survived today is two-fold. First, he focused all of his attention on making 50 paintings for William Macbeth to choose the 25 best of the lot. This probably took him the better part of 1921 through 1922 for an exhibit set for January of 1923, meaning he was not making many paintings to sell prior to the exhibit with Macbeth. He probably made more than 50 but some of those pieces did not make his final cut.
Also, on December 22, 1922, the night before those paintings were to be shipped to New York City, it is cold and the Redgate studio was packed full of the shipping containers. Concerned the paintings would freeze overnight, running the risk they would crack and chip, Woodward added extra wood to the wood burning stove inadvertently producing a super-heated and combustible atmosphere for the chemicals also stored in the packed studio. A fire ignited, burning the entire studio and all of its contents, except one painting which was saved. In the end, he lost everything including any additional paintings that missed the cut. This accident not only left him without a studio from which to work, the loss of work, but also angered Macbeth, who held a grudge for nearly a decade, because of the cancelled show and as well as it’s initial establishment. Sincerity is a hallmark of Woodward's persevering spirit. It would become what he is known for but at this time he is still somewhat immature and probably clouded by his fast and sudden success. In dealing with Macbeth, rather than being honest with him and explaining that he would prefer his work stand on its own merit without having potential buyers be influenced by his obvious handicap, he instead said that a handicap kept him in the quiet of the hill. Woodward would not have his first one-man show in New York City for another decade after the Redgate fire.
So now Woodward is thirty-seven years old, his life's work is in ruin, and his reputation tarnished badly. Since his accident in 1906, only 4 of those years were truly productive in the sense of achievement and independence. This event would put his life on hold for another 4 years as he scrambled for a new home, in need of his friends to rescue him once again financially, and suffering from another undisclosed illness that was most likely the result of financial privation and possibly depression brought on by grief, like when he was a student at the MFAS.
His losses would be enormous. In just the paintings alone, the financial loss is around the neighborhood of $300,000 in today's money. But it is his reputation that would hinder him further costing him more. In fact, his first true one-man featured show would not happen for another 3 years, 11 months, and 9 days from the date of the fire. It would not be in New York, but Boston. It would not appear in a gallery, but rather a private residence of a neighbor of his long-time advocate and patron Minnie Eliot.
While some of his previous misfortune may have been by his own hand, perhaps this event had such an impact on him that he makes a concerted effort to change, to hunker down and find the stability he always desired. He would do it with humility and modesty that he only pretended to have prior, by living up to and by the doctrine of the philosophy he read, studied and admired- misfortune is very different than being unfortunate. He was at his core a naturalist and he would adopt its precepts and weave them into his everyday life by making it a lifestyle. And although the next four years would be the least productive of his professional painting career, he would use this time to prepare himself to rise once again.
Thus far, Woodward's relationship with Buckland is not fully expressed. That will change along with many other things in the years to come. For now, it appears that Woodward ending up in Buckland was simply a matter of circumstance and convenience, as if he had no place else to go. However, while we can't say if Woodward had not been paralyzed and then able to finish his art studies in Boston he would have come to Buckland. We can say that now that he is there, there is no place else he'd rather be.
Up to this point, the only thing that feels like his is the Redgate studio. Aside from the great loss financially, the significance of Redgate to Woodward as a sanctuary cannot be understated. It was his to do with what he could where he created an aesthetic and atmosphere unique to his personal style that he would apply to all of his future homes and studios. Redgate's importance to his work is demonstrated in his attempt later to return to the woods behind where it once sat and continue to paint the wooded, dark, interior paintings.
In his first exhibition upon his return to public exhibitions, 14 Quintessential Redgate paintings are shown, but only four of them sell. One could assume that they were missing something contained in the paintings painted prior to the fire, which is why he kept a number of them in storage for so long only to repaint them later destroying the originals. There may be another factor as to why these paintings did not sell after the fire. The market is changing. The demand for art in a distinctly American theme and style is gaining traction. It will lead to what is referred to as the American Art Scene Movement (1925 - 1940) and Woodward will not only lean into this change in the appetites of the market, but he will also thrive and find his greatest success
First, he will need a new home and studio. Again, with the help of friends and family, he will buy the long-neglected Hiram Woodward Farm property of which he is currently renting its main house. The nearly 9-acre property includes the main house, a large shed, a barn, a horse shed and stable, as well as the Burnham Cottage he rented previously. First, he will need to ready his new studio in the back of the barn, and he will then put all his love of this first true home into its’ restoration to become a showcase of the classic New England Farm with a reputation so great, people will drive miles out of their way to pass it. This focus on renovation, or distraction, is perhaps why he only exhibited 7 paintings over a nearly four-year period.
He has just turned 38 years old. Woodward wouldn't know that he is on the other side, the down-hill portion of his life, but he does know he is not going to get many more chances either and he acts accordingly.
More to follow, which will pick up in 1924 and cover the remainder of Woodward's career and life in Buckland. It is really when his love for Western Massachusetts and Buckland begins to show in his work and subject matter, especially as the nation falls into its’ Great Depression, when Woodward turns his attention to its people and the connection they have to their home. Also touched on will be Woodward's evolution and how his love for poetry, and the romantic in him elevates his work to true poeticism without crossing the line into the romance that dominated his early career. This is important to the signature look and style that is to become his trademark.
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