Woods, Marshall (1824-1899)
Role: Class of 1845, Treasurer, Brown Corporation memberDates: 1855-1899
Portrait Location: University Hall 312
Artist: Raditz, Lazar (1887-1956)
Portrait Date:
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 39 1/2
Framed Dimensions: 51
Brown Portrait Number: 113
Brown Historical Property Number: 600
When Marshall Woods graduated from Brown University in 1845, he was not the first of his family to establish a lifelong connection with the university that spanned generations. His father, Alva Woods (BP 66), was a professor of natural philosophy and mathematics at Brown, and served as interim president, trustee, and as a fellow of the university. Three years after his graduation from Brown, Marshall Woods earned a medical degree from the University of New York. He did not pursue a medical career but instead engaged in investments and was a director of the Providence National Bank. Woods also served as a commissioner in the 1855 Paris exposition. He was Brown University's treasurer from 1866 to 1882, and a member of the corporation from 1855 until his death in 1899. In 1871, years before the Art Department was formed in 1892, Woods donated three thousand dollars to establish a "Lectureship on the Fine Arts, and on their Application to the Mechanic Arts, or Industrial Pursuits." Based on this initiative, the Marshall Woods lectures started in 1909.
Woods married Anne Brown Francis (1828-1896), daughter of Governor John Brown Francis and Anne Carter Brown. Her paternal great-grandfather was Providence merchant John Brown, and her maternal grandfather Nicholas Brown (John Brown's nephew), for whom Brown University was named. The Woods family resided at the Italianate Woods-Gerry House (built 1860-63, designed by architect Richard Upjohn) located on Prospect Street in Providence, which now houses the Rhode Island's School of Design's Admissions and Development offices.
Marshall Woods died in London in 1899. The painting was a gift of Marshall Wood's son, John Carter Brown Woods, class of 1872 (BP 132).
Prominent Philadelphia portrait artist Lazar Raditz (1887-1956) immigrated from Russia to the United States in 1903. In 2002 Raditz's portrait of Marshall Woods was sent to the Williamstown Art Conservation Center, where several rips and tears were mended and a heavy layer of surface grime was removed. The portrait now hangs in the Corporation Room in University Hall.