William Woodward is Professor Emeritus of Fine Art at The George Washington University where he taught and directed the painting program for graduate students.  Woodward grew up in Washington D.C., and earned his B.A. and M.A. from American University. He studied at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, and at the Accademia di Belli Arti in Florence, Italy on a Fellowship from The Leopold Shepp Foundation.

    In 1989, he won the design competition for a silver dollar minted by the U.S Treasury, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Congress. His most recent commissions include a mural at the Lincoln National Monument in Washington, D.C. Woodward has several decades of experience in creating narrative art. He was selected to paint “The Greatest Show on Earth” for Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Combined Shows, Inc., Corporate Headquarters in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. 

    His most notable works are “The Great Odyssey of Medicine” at the Conference Center of Fairfax Inova Hospital, and “A Loudoun County Story” at the Thomas Balch Library Mural in Leesburg, Virginia.  His most recent commission is the  mural, “Thomas Jefferson at Monticello” at the new visitors’ center. His painting “Avarice” was awarded 1st Prize at the 49th Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Art at the Society of the Four Arts Museum, Palm Beach, Florida, in 1995. He has been invited to the National Gallery of Art, as guest expert, where he presented two lectures and live demonstrations re-creating Titian’s “Venus Before the Mirror,” as a guest for the “Anatomy of Art: Techniques of the Old Masters” lecture series at he NGA. He and his wife, the artist Becky Parrish, have also been invited by the NGA on other occasions to create caricatures and portraits to celebrate special events at the National Galley of Art in Washington, D.C.

Woodward Parrish Studios

11590 Bear Cub Court

Marshall, Virginia  20115

(540) 364-4894