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| Grant Wood 1941 photo: Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa |
Grant DeVolson Wood (1891 – 1942) was
born in 1891 near Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting
the rural American Midwest. His 1930 painting “American Gothic” has become an
iconic image of C20th art.
The family moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa
after the death of his father in 1901. After graduating from High School, Wood
enrolled in an art school in Minneapolis in 1910. In 1913 he enrolled at the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Between 1920 and 1828 he made four
trips to Europe, where he studied many styles of painting, especially
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works.But it was the work of the C15th Flemish artist Jan van Eyck that influenced him to take on the clarity of van Eck’s technique and incorporate it in his new works. Between 1924 and 1935 Wood lived in the loft of a carriage house thet he turned into his personal studio that became “5 Turner Alley.”
In 1932 Wood helped to found the Stone City Art Colony near his home-town to help artists get through the Great Depression. He became a proponent of regionalism in the arts, lecturing throughout the country on the subject.
He was married to Sara Sherman Maxon from 1935 to 1938. He taught painting at the University of Iowa’s School of Art from 1934 to 1941. During that time he supervised mural painting projects, mentored students, produced a variety of his own works, and became a key part of the University’s cultural community.
Wood died relatively young of pancreatic cancer, one day before his 51st birthday in 1942. His estate went to his sister Nan Wood Graham, the model for the female in “American Gothic.” When she died in 1990, her estate, along with Grant Wood’s personal effects and various works of art, became the property of the Figge Art Museum in davenport, Iowa.
Biographical notes adapted from a Wikipedia entry.
This is part 1 of a 2 – part post on the works of Grant Wood:
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| 1907 Currants watercolour 29.2 x 11.6 cm Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa |
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| 1917 Quivering Aspen oil on composition board 35.6 x 27.9 cm Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa |
Note: I couldn't find titles or details for a number of the following works, despite having a book of Grant Wood's works. I have used descriptive titles ( in brackets ) to denote these works.
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| 1917-18 ( Carriage Business ) |
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| 1919 ( Autumn Landscape ) |
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| 1919 ( Old Stone Barn ) |
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| 1919c Old Sexton's Place oil on composition board 38.1 x 46 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1920 ( A Church in Paris ) |
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| 1920 ( A Foggy Day in Paris ) |
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| 1920 ( Café in Paris ) |
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| 1920 ( Osier ) |
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| 1920 ( Paris Street ) |
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| 1920 ( Statue in Paris ) |
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| 1920 ( The Gate within the City Walls ) |
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| 1920 Fountain of Voltaire, Chatenay oil on composition board 33 x 38.1 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1921-22 Adoration of the Home oil on canvas mounted on panel ( intended for use as a billboard for a local real estate agency ) 57.8 x 206.7 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1923 Untitled from suite "Savage Iowa" ( Buffalo Stampede ) pencil and wash on paper 30.5 x 80 cm Smithsonian American art Museum, Washington, DC |
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| 1923 Untitled from suite "Savage Iowa" ( Clothes Line ) pencil and wash on paper 33 x 80 cm American art Museum, Washington, DC |
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| 1923 Untitled from suite "Savage Iowa" ( Cowboy and Indian ) pencil and was on paper 25.4 x 68.6 cm Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC |
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| 1924 ( Courtyard in Italy ) |
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| 1924 ( Urns ) |
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| 1924 The Runners, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris oil on composition board 39.7 x 31.7 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1924 The Spotted Man oil on canvas 81.3 x 50.8 cm Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa |
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| 1924 Truck Garden, Moret oil on composition board 32.4 x 40 cm Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa |
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| 1924 Yellow Doorway, St. Emilion oil on composition board 41.9 x 33 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1925 Helix Welder oil on canvas 46 x 59 cm |
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| 1925 The Shop Inspector oil on canvas 61 x 45.7 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1926 ( At the Gate ) |
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| 1926 ( Parisian Scene ) |
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| 1926 Grandma Wood's House oil on composition board 55.9 x 68.6 cm Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa |
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| 1926 Old Shoes oil on composition board 24.8 x 25.4 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1926 The Little Chapel Chancelade Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa |
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| 1928-30 Portrait of John B. Turner oil on canvas 76.8 x 64.8 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1929 Portrait of Frances Fiske Marshall oil on canvas 102.9 x 72.4 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1929 Woman with Plants oil on upsom board 52.1 x 45.4 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
1930 American Gothic
This familiar image was exhibited publicly for the first time at the Art Institute of Chicago, winning a three-hundred-dollar prize and instant fame for Grant Wood. The impetus for the painting came while Wood was visiting the small town of Eldon in his native Iowa. There he spotted a little wooden farmhouse with a single oversized window, made in a style called Carpenter Gothic.
"I imagined American Gothic people with their faces stretched out long, to go with this American Gothic house," he said. He used his sister and his dentist as models for a farmer and his daughter, dressing them as if they were "tintypes from my old family album."
The highly detailed, polished style and the rigid frontality of the two figures were inspired by Flemish Renaissance art, which Wood studied during his travels to Europe between 1920 and 1926.
After returning to settle in Iowa, he became increasingly appreciative of mid-western traditions and culture, which he celebrated in works such as this. American Gothic, often understood as a satirical comment on the mid-western character, quickly became one of America's most famous paintings and is now firmly entrenched in the nation's popular culture. Yet Wood intended it to be a positive statement about rural American values, an image of reassurance at a time of great dislocation and disillusionment. The man and woman, in their solid and well-crafted world, with all their strengths and weaknesses, represent survivors.
Notes from Art Institute of Chicago,
Essential Guide 2013.
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| 1930 American Gothic oil on beaverboard 76 x 65.3 cm Art Institute of Chicago, IL |
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| The house in Eldon |
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| 1930 Study for American Gothic oil on paperboard 32.1 x 37.2 cm Smithsonian American art Museum, Washington, DC |
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| Wood's sister Nan and his dentist with American Gothic |
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| Huge American Gothic statue in Chicago |
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| 1930 Arnold Comes of Age ( Portrait of Arnold Pyle ) oil on board 67.9 x 58.4 cm Sheldon Museum of Art, Nebraska Art Association Collection |
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| 1930 Over-mantle Decoration oil on upsom board 104.8 x 162 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1930 Stone City, Iowa oil on composition board 76.8 x 101.6 cm Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE |
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| 1930 Study for "Stone City, Iowa" |
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| 1931 Appraisal oil on composition board 74.9 x 89.5 cm Dubuque Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1931 Fall Plowing oil on canvas 76.2 x 103.5 cm The John Deere Collection, Moline, IL |
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| 1931 Study for "Fall Plowing" Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa |
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| 1931 Plaid Sweater oil on composition board 74.9 x 61.3 cm University of Iowa Museum of Art |
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| 1931 The Birthplace of Herbert Hoover, West Branch, Iowa oil on composition board 75.2 x 101 cm The Minneapolis Institute of arts, Minnesota |
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| 1931 The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere oil on masonite 76.2 x 101.6 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York © 1982 The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| 1931 Victorian Survival oil on composition board 82.5 x 66.7 cm Dubuque Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1931 Victorian Survival ( Matilda Peet tintype 8.9 x 5.4 cm Davenport Art Gallery ) |
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| 1931 Young Corn oil on masonite 61 x 75.9 cm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Iowa |
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| 1932 ( Spring Oaks ) |
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| 1932 Arbor Day oil on masonite board 61 x 76.2 cm Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA |
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| Grant Wood with "Arbor Day" |
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| 1932 Daughters of the Revolution oil on masonite board 50.8 x 101.4 cm The Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
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| 1932 Boy Milking Cow oil on canvas 181 x 160.6 cm Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa |
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| 1932 Farmer with Pigs oil on canvas 181 x 72.4 cm Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa |
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| 1932 Farmer's Daughter oil on canvas 15.6 x 98.4 cm Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa |
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| 1932 Farmer's Wife with Chickens oil on canvas 181 x 124.5 cm Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa |
