Eudoxia Woodward, 88; painter merged science, art

Eudoxia Muller Woodward chose a title for an exhibition in 1977 that spoke to the tension at the heart of her paintings: "Flowers - Art or Science?"

"Through close examination of (plants), I continue to find examples of the 'divine laws of nature,' " she said that year in a gallery talk at the Arnold Arboretum, which was quoted in one of the institution's publications. "I also find endless pleasure at looking at and recording their structure and growth. In my paintings I hope to transmit my excitement about these laws and, by bringing together science and art, lessen the bridge that exists between them."

Undaunted by the gulf others perceived between these two fields, she created drawings and watercolors that owed as much to the precision of measurements as they did to the billowing freedom of creativity. Mrs. Woodward died Sunday in the Belmont house where she had lived for decades. She was 88 and had been diagnosed with cancer nearly two years ago.

"Her work was creative, but also technical," said her son, Eric, of Southampton, N.Y. "The botanical illustrators sometimes look down on artists who take a creative approach because they're concerned they won't get the technical part right. But my mom was insistent on looking at the geometric aspects that are found in nature."

Duality in vision and approach sprang from Mrs. Woodward's childhood and adolescence in New York City. Born in Flushing, Queens, she grew up in a household that formed a familial bridge between exactitude and imagination. Her mother, Olga Popoff Muller, was a sculptor; her father, John Muller, was an architect.

In a decision that would shape the rest of her life, she moved to Boston after finishing her bachelor of arts degree at Smith College, rather than return home to New York.

"When she graduated from college and said, 'I'm moving to Boston' to her father, he said, 'If you do that, you're doing it on your own,' " her son said. At first she worked for Edwin H. Land at Polaroid Corp. on research that produced the Vectograph, which was used to create three-dimensional images in aerial reconnaissance missions during World War II. She also worked with Land on SX70, the project that led to Polaroid instant photography.

Through her work at Polaroid she met Robert Burns Woodward, a Harvard chemist Land had engaged as a consultant.

In 1946 she married Woodward, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1965. He died in 1979.

While presiding over her household, Mrs. Woodward used art as a way to help her children and their friends learn by drawing or turning twigs into tiny figures. She subsequently taught art at Belmont Day School. Years later, she held watercolor painting classes in the Brookhaven at Lexington retirement community and taught privately.

"There were artistic activities and projects around at the house at all times," said Mrs. Woodward's daughter, Crystal, of LaCoste, France. "The hands were there to create things, and to create in many imaginative ways."

The most imaginative hands around belonged to Mrs. Woodward, who drew inspiration from plants in her own garden that might escape the eye of someone less sensitive to otherwise unheralded shapes.

"The study here of the cauliflower concentrates on its pentagonal structure and the inherent five and eight spiral clusters," she wrote of "Cauliflower Configuration," which she painted in 1986.

Later in the two paragraphs she wrote about the painting, Mrs. Woodward noted that within each cluster are smaller clusters growing in spirals with the same two formations, "five in one direction and eight in the other direction, thus creating the concept of infinity."

In 1995, her paintings were part of a show at the Francesca Anderson Fine Art gallery in Lexington. For her watercolor "Pentagonal Red Hibiscus," Mrs. Woodward told the Globe that she plotted four views of a blossom against the five-sided form mentioned in the painting's title.

"The pentagon," she said in 1995, "keeps repeating itself in nature in a beautiful way."

In Mrs. Woodward's paintings could be found "visual puns, allegories, symbolic references," her daughter said. "The sense I've gotten looking at her work over the past few months is that it's an important original body of work, bringing together imagination and creativity in an artistic endeavor with the scientific precision and exactitude."

Through the years, Mrs. Woodward's work has appeared in publications and in exhibitions at places such as the DeCordova Museum and Smith College, her family said. Mrs. Woodward was awarded the Stanhope Framers prize from the New England Watercolor Society in 2002, her children said, and also spoke regularly about her work.

"People have been captivated by these lectures, listening to her as she presents her artwork," her daughter said. "These lectures - they could become a book."

Relentlessly curious, Mrs. Woodward kept dipping into research even during her final weeks, paging through plant reference books that, for her, were akin to sacred texts that provided a visual vernacular for her art.

"People talk about one's mother tongue in the sense of the first language you speak - they're usually talking about English or another language," her daughter said.

"I think that growing up in our house, art was another first language. . . . Painting and sculpture and the exploration of forms, that was an integral part of life. It was a necessary part of life."

In addition to her daughter and son, Mrs. Woodward leaves two granddaughters.

A memorial service will be held at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the Cambridge Boat Club.