Robert Strong Woodward
Robert Strong Woodward (1885 -1957) was an American artist born in Northampton, Massachusetts. His father's job as a real estate developer required family relocations and the boy moved from school to school across the country, but for the summer holidays, the family returned to Robert's grandparents farm in Buckland (MA). After graduating from high school and a year in college, Woodward joined his parents in California, where he planned to go to university. However, these plans were not destined to come true. At the age of 21, he sustained an accidental gunshot wound that left him permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He returned to New England in 1910, determined to make a living as an artist, and after a few months at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts school, Robert settled in Buckland, where he had previously lived during his summer vacation. Four times he built studios for himself to work and for various reasons, three of them burned down along with almost all of his works. In the last two studios, Woodward has produced most of his professional creative work, including the much sought-after "window paintings". The last studio in Buckland is lovingly maintained in much the same condition as it was during Woodward's lifetime.
