Any thoughts on this painting...

[newnewnewmann]

Dated 1924 but the name I'm not sure what it says. 

31" x 27"

[argon38]

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@c*me*4*lefton*info wrote:

Coming back to this after a couple of hours thinking about it. I am only offering a suggestion here, I think I see Greenwood as the name.

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I think you may have got it with Greenwood - it's a very plausible reading.

[argon38]

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@maxine*j wrote:

The lad yearned for the lass bisqué
And declared his love every day

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1 upvote for rhyming. But since it's a lass, should it be bisquée?
 

[maxine*j]

I agree that "Greenwood" is a real possibility for the name.  I wonder about the Greenwoods you mentioned, though, since they're Americans and this has a European "vibe" to me.   At the same time, I admit the "1924" appears more likely to have been written by an American than a European. 

I'm curious to know what those more knowledge about the nuts and bolts of art have to say about the picture's backside.

[sonomabarn67]

OK, it is what is known as a keyed stretcher where the flat wooden pieces or "keys" are inserted into pre-cut grooves at the mitred corners after the canvas is stretched and tacked onto said strecher bars. The goal is to end up with a perfectly flat surface to paint upon. This looks like it was possibly a home made stretcher.  It is not a very good job of tacking the canvas on the stretcher. Circa 1900 to the date we see or later, but since we have a date, let's go with that. 

Keyed stretchers came in after the late Victorian period where there were all kinds of cast iron self keying devices used only to be replaced by a simpler way by cutting those key grooves into the wood of the mitred corners. Non-googled information used on this one. 🙂

Frame is recent.

[sonomabarn67]

The keys were also used to take up any later slack that might occur as the canvas aged.

[newnewnewmann]

Thank you sonomabarn67! Excellent information. I figured if anyone knew that, you would. 

[newnewnewmann]

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@c*me*4*lefton*info wrote:

Coming back to this after a couple of hours thinking about it. I am only offering a suggestion here, I think I see Greenwood as the name.  Might be Marion Greenwood. Or maybe her father, George Marion Greenwood, who was also a painter. There are a number of (the daughter) Marion Greenwoods works on Google images, also a wikipedia page, but it is difficult for me to state that the style is the same when it apparently and obviously isn't. But Marion would have been only 15 in 1924. She did start painting at age 14 in 1923 however. Perhaps her initial style and signature varied from her more mature works? Lots of info online about Marion the daughter, not much about her father, George Marion Greenwood. Maybe worth digging deeper than I have time for.

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Thank you! I am searching Greenwoods.