Woodward Family
George and Gertrude Woodward were Violet Oakley’s most important private patrons and some of her closest friends. They became acquainted in 1906 when George, the primary real estate developer of the new suburbs of Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy in northwest Philadelphia, hired architect Frank Miles Day to renovate a nineteenth-century farmstead as a residence and studio for Oakley, Jessie Willcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green, and Henrietta Cozens after the Red Rose estate they had been renting in Villanova was sold. Known as Cogslea (a name formed from the initials of the women’s surnames), the property was located in West Mount Airy on Saint George’s Road, a street presumably named for their benefactor; Cogslea would remain Oakley’s home for the rest of her life. As a tribute to the Woodwards’ chivalrous rescue of the artists, Oakley designed a tile overmantel depicting Saint George and Saint Gertrude as a knight and lady for their new home, Krisheim, built nearby in 1910. Wealthy, generous, and socially progressive, George was a member of the Octavia Hill Association, which provided affordable housing for impoverished immigrants in Philadelphia. He also served as a Pennsylvania state senator from 1919 to 1945.
Oakley was already nationally famous when she met the Woodwards, having just completed the murals for the Governor’s Grand Executive Reception Room in the Pennsylvania State Capitol. The couple arranged commissions for her to design murals in Chestnut Hill Academy’s Henry Memorial Library in 1907 and stained glass windows in Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church in neighboring Germantown in 1908. Oakley made many portraits of the Woodward family, including posthumous likenesses of their son Henry Howard Houston Woodward (1922), a pilot who died in World War I in 1914, and their daughter Quita Woodward (1939), who died of Hodgkin’s disease in 1934, shortly after graduating from Bryn Mawr College. Over the years, Oakley’s friendship with the Woodwards deepened. In the spring of 1928 they traveled together through North Africa, Sicily, and Greece, a journey that Oakley recorded in a series of sketches.
Works in Woodmere’s Collection
![Untitled [Portrait study of a boy]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/68961b6b3189b29172d19dc9/691da5875c6a560ca08c776f_voe-art-7089-art-image-oakley-p-607-crop.avif)
![Untitled [Portrait study of a boy]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/68961b6b3189b29172d19dc9/691da58727dd10be39d8fe3c_voe-art-7090-art-image-oakley-p-628-crop.avif)
![Untitled [Portrait study of a boy]](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/68961b6b3189b29172d19dc9/691da588cbbc685d4bfcf8f9_voe-art-7096-art-image-oakley-98a-crop.avif)
Works in Other Collections
Gertrude and George in North Africa, 1928, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Woodward Family)
Portrait of Quita Woodward, 1939, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of Art & Artifact Collection/Special Collections, Bryn Mawr College)
The Three boys, date unknown, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Woodward Family)
Portrait of Henry Howard Houston Woodward, 1922, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Woodward Family)
Master Chas. Woodward, October 1918, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Woodward Family)
Mother and Daughter, date unknown, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Woodward Family)
Mrs. George Woodward and Quita, date unknown, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Drexel Collection, Drexel University)
Quita Woodward as a Child, 1938, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Woodward Family)
Study of Henry Howard Houston Woodward, date unknown, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: Gift of the Violet Oakley Memorial Foundation, https://www.pafa.org/collection/study-henry-howard-houston-woodward-2)
Study of Henry Howard Houston Woodward, date unknown, by Violet Oakley (Courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: Gift of the Violet Oakley Memorial Foundation, https://www.pafa.org/collection/study-henry-howard-houston-woodward-1)
Saints George and Gertrude, ceramic tile overmantle, designed by Violet Oakley for Krisheim, Philadelphia, 1911 (Collection of the Woodward Family) Photograph by Darryl Moran
Historical Images
Gertrude and George Woodward, in 1944, on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary (Chestnut Hill Conservancy) Photographer unknown
Woodward Family, date unknown (Chestnut Hill Conservancy) Photographer unknown
Krisheim, 1968 (Chestnut Hill Conservancy) Photograph by James J. Bartkus
Related Works in Woodmere’s Collection
Illustration study with St. Michael and the slain dragon for unidentified publication, c. 1900, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Study of "St. George and the Dragon" by Carpaccio, c. 1902, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Tracing of study of "St. George and the Dragon" by Carpaccio, c. 1901, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Study for Ex Libris, date unknown, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Study for "Heroism (David and Goliath)," the left panel of the "Heroism (Young David), Sacrifice (Christ among the Doctors), Service (Young Solomon)" mural, Chestnut Hill Academy, c. 1907, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Study for "Sacrifice (The Boy Jesus among the Doctors)," the center panel of the "Heroism (David and Goliath), Sacrifice (Christ among the Doctors), Service (Young Solomon)" mural, Chestnut Hill Academy, c. 1907, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Study for "Service (Young Solomon)," the right panel of the "Heroism (David and Goliath), Sacrifice (Christ among the Doctors), Service (Young Solomon)" mural, Chestnut Hill Academy, c. 1907, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Constantine, Algeria, 1928, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Violet Oakley Foundation, 1983)
Timgad, Algeria (Capitoline Temple or Temple of Jupiter?), 1928, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Violet Oakley Foundation, 1983)
Gulf of Corinth, Greece, 1928, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Violet Oakley Foundation, 1983)
Oasis of El Oued: Harbor of Refuge, 1928, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Illuminated text study for WWI Roll of Honour, St. George's School, Middletown, RI, 1919, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Study of illustration and illuminated initial to illuminated text for WWI Roll of Honour, St. George's School, Middletown, RI, 1919, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Study of illustration and illuminated initial to illuminated text for WWI Roll of Honour, St. George's School, Middletown, RI, 1919, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Gulf of Corinth, 1928, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Detail study of figure to illuminated text for WWI Roll of Honour, St. George's School, Middletown, RI, 1919, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
Mt. Etna from Syracuse, 1928, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)
More from
Portraits
![Beatrice Harrison, "The Lady of the Nightingales" [Woman with Cello], date unknown, by Violet Oakley (Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 2015)](https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/68961b6b3189b29172d19dc9/691d4dd7ae7c6fcb2a2eac7e_oakley_2018.1.1571-1920x1920-optmized.avif)
