To date no raisonné of the prints of Charles H. Woodbury has been published. Indeed, very few catalogues or notes give specific information about his etchings. Since this is the first attempt at a complete listing of Woodbury’s prints there are undoubtedly some that have not been found.    There are also a few prints that were in my original lists from the Boston Public Library that are missing, and a more thorough search through those vast holdings is underway. There are titles at the Library of Congress which appear to be unique. Private collectors and other repositories will almost certainly have prints that are not now included.

Any omissions or errors in inclusion or information are my responsibility —please let me know about them and we will make corrections and additions as appropriate.

Alternate titles have been noted. In addition there are often several different prints bearing the same title. These have been designated by a Roman numeral following the title. States and related original drawings will be added in the near future.

Two separate but overlapping logs (A# & P#) were kept by the artist at various times. The A# list has 109 titles and was revised by Woodbury in 1934.    The P# list with 187 titles was an earlier attempt to compile a listing. Neither was kept chronologically and in only the first three titles do the two lists match.    A#s & P#s are listed here for possible identification purposes. There are some duplications of numbers in both lists that have not been resolved. The edition size for A# prints is from the artist's log.

Your comments, suggestions and assistance will be greatly appreciated.   

Warren Seamans
seamans@mit.edu


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS FOR THE WOODBURY PRINT RAISONNE:

This Raisonné was originally suggested to me by Sinclair Hitchings, Keeper of Prints, Boston Public Library, who for several decades oversaw that institution’s collection of Charles H. Woodbury materials. As Director of The MIT Museum, I had become aware of and then entranced by Woodbury’s prints during the preparation for the major Woodbury exhibition mounted by the Museum in 1988.    In the early 1990s I systematically surveyed the BPL's Woodbury holdings and gathered basic data for a catalogue raisonne. This was combined with MIT’s holdings which by this time included a very large collection of mostly-unique Woodbury prints that had been in the Gertrude Fiske estate and were acquired through the munificence of William Greenbaum Fine Prints, Gloucester, MA.   

At this juncture more than 450 individual prints had been identified which made the publication of a paper-based raisonne far beyond available resources.    The project languished until Ken Turino’s Museum Studies Course at Tufts University mounted a Woodbury print exhibition.    At that opening I was asked by Roger Howlett about doing an online raisonne which I readily agreed to.

Retrieving my research from the bowels of the MIT Museum where I had left it at my retirement was the exceptional handiwork of Jennifer O’Neill who somehow got information out of totally obsolete computer discs. Providing the expertise, equipment and the overall logistics of scanning the MIT and then the BPL Woodbury prints were Joan Whitlow, Kurt Hasselbalch, Frank Conahan and Mary Leen.    This project could not have suceeded without their support and dedication.

By far the most complicated and time consuming part of this effort was relocating the prints at the Boston Public Library and getting them to MIT for scanning.    This monumental effort was handled by Karen Shafts, Assistant Keeper of Prints. Her efforts went far beyond any normal call of duty and she was the model of patience in dealing with my demands on her time. Elizabeth Beierle, BPL intern, identified the original Woodbury etching plates. Eric Mulder was a patient Photoshop instructor.

Meghan Read of Childs Gallery, the raisonne.org administrator, has been the constant support for innumerable questions that arose in getting this project going.

GENERAL INFORMATION ON WOODBURY PRINTS:

There are two primary repositories of Woodbury's prints -- the Print Department of the Boston Public Library and The MIT Museum.

At Woodbury's death in 1940 his estate came under the control of Elizabeth Ward Perkins who had been closely associated with Woodbury's Ogunquit School for more than two decades. In 1944, Mrs. Perkins and the artist's son and daughter-in-law, David O. and Ruth Ruyl (India) Woodbury, donated a complete set of Woodbury's prints and a vast quantity of related materilas and drawings to the Boston Public Library. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology also received a large collection of prints. Both institutions received sizable collections of watercolors and oil paintings as well.

In recognition of the centennial of Woodbury's 1886 graduation from MIT, The MIT Museum mounted an extensive exhibition of his works entitled "Earth, Sea and Sky - Charles H. Woodbury" and published a catalogue with five major essays on the artist and his work. The exhibition ran at The MIT Museum from March until October 1988 and then traveled to 14 museums around the US over the next four years. A second exhibition entitled "Postcards from Ogunquit" was also mounted by The MIT Museum and traveled widely across the US.

In addition to the exhibition catalogue mentioned above there is an excellent monograph by George M. Young, "Force Through Delicacy - The Life and Art of Charles H. Woodbury" which was published in 1998 in connection with an exhibit at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art celebrating the centennial of Woodbury's first art classes in Ogunquit.

Warren Seamans
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The following is from a 1929 exhibition catalogue of Woodbury’s etchings at Frederick Keppel & Co., in New York:

“My general interest in line is for its suggestive value, as it conveys the thought of force or motion, and leads the attention. I use it to indicate light and shade rather than to fully express it and prefer that it should not lose its identity as line except in the few places where complete description is necessary. The line is used for itself as sensation and not as imitation and has often the value of a graphic gesture. It is as abstract as a word and stands for a sensation as the word does for an object.’

Charles H. Woodbury, 1929

From the same catalogue Leila Mechlin of the American Magazine of Art wrote:

“Mr. Charles H. Woodbury is a much better known as a painter than as an etcher and many that are familiar with his paintings will be surprised to learn that he does etch, but those who have had the privilege of examining his etchings, know that he is to be numbered among the foremost etchers of our time if not of all time.

“The sea and mountains have for some years been Mr. Woodbury’s favorite themes. There is a kinship between the two great manifestations of nature both in sense of vastness and strength, and this Mr. Woodbury has felt very keenly and interpreted in his paintings. It is the same feeling which is to be found in his etchings and even in a more impressive form. An etching always seems to be the essence of things felt but unsaid, and thus these etchings of Mr. Woodbury’s are really eloquent. He pictures the stern rock-bound coast of Maine with a few lines and give an adequate impression of its bold grandeur; with a few more lines he brings before our vision the open sea and awakens the same sensibility that the limitless, restless waves themselves may have stirred; he gives a picture of mountain tops, and the observer is bound to comprehend their lofty stateliness; or he presents a scene on the beach, and instantly one is transported to the gayest center of an American summer resort.

“And what is most interesting is that all this is accomplished with rather rugged lines and almost rude simplicity.        This is something more than skill; it is mastery and of a kind which is rare. Here is a man with the artist’s vision who has something to say and knows how to say it.        He way is his own and his message is very worth while. This is modern art, and art which is essentially American; it is vital, forceful and sincere.    In one of these etchings no larger than a man’s hand there is as much as in a painting many feet in dimensions—indeed, much more than in most paintings.”