GENERAL DESCRIPTION
One of America's most famous painters of the American Scene, Grant Wood first won wide attention when American Gothic was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930. Grant Wood grew up in rural Iowa, teaching himself to draw in his leisure time. He later studied at the University of Iowa, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Europe. He returned home after realizing that all of his best ideas came to him when he was in Iowa. Precisely meticulous in detail with humor and occasional satire, his works have poignantly captured the rural scenes of Midwestern life.
Adapted from
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Famous American Paintings Assembled for the State Fair of Texas, 1948, (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1948), np.
NOTES
Created in 1938
Object File Reviewed
America's most famous painter of the American Scene, Grant Wood, first won wide attention on when "American Gothic" was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930. Overnight he became a success. Precisely meticulous in detail with humor and occasional satire, his paintings have poignantly captured the rural scenes of Midwestern life. Grant Wood grew up in rural Iowa, teaching himself to draw in his leisure time. He later studied at the University of Iowa, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Europe. During his studies in
Paris, he went Bohemian. He grew an astonishing "pink" beard, read H. 1. Mencken and was almost convinced that the Midwest was culturally barren and inhibited. In Paris he began to paint the "sleazy artifices of impressionism" only to realize , unhappily, that these canvases might have borne the signature of any number of his European contemporaries. For him , they said nothing! He went on to Germany to study the early German masters. He began to analyze what it was that he really knew. "Suddenly I realized that all the really good ideas I'd ever had, came to me when I was milking a cow. So I went back to Iowa." Back home, his precise technique limited him to painting on the average of only two pictures a year. About "American Gothic" he said: "In southern Iowa I saw a low, white farmhouse with a peaked gable and a single Gothic window, and I imagined American Gothic people with their faces stretched out long to go with this American Gothic house and so I drew them. "
From Famous American Paintings assembled for the State Fair of TX 1948, exh cat from Piction
Wood, Grant (American, 1891-1942)
Cultures
Geography
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
From 2000: Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts, The Alfred and Juanita Bromberg Collection, bequest of Juanita K. Bromberg
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WEB RESOURCES
- Smithsonian American Art Museum~Learn more about this artist and his work from SAAM.
- Whitney Museum of American Art~Listen to the audio guide playlist from the 2018 exhibition Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables.
- Hillstrom Museum of Art~View nineteen lithographs by Grant Wood from the 2015 exhibition Grant Wood's Lithographs: A Regionalist Vision Set in Stone at the Hillstrom Museum of Art in St. Peter, Minnesota.
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General Description
One of America's most famous painters of the American Scene, Grant Wood first won wide attention when American Gothic was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930. Grant Wood grew up in rural Iowa, teaching himself to draw in his leisure time. He later studied at the University of Iowa, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Europe. He returned home after realizing that all of his best ideas came to him when he was in Iowa. Precisely meticulous in detail with humor and occasional satire, his works have poignantly captured the rural scenes of Midwestern life.
Adapted from
Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Famous American Paintings Assembled for the State Fair of Texas, 1948, (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1948), np.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Smithsonian American Art Museum~Learn more about this artist and his work from SAAM.
- Whitney Museum of American Art~Listen to the audio guide playlist from the 2018 exhibition Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables.
- Hillstrom Museum of Art~View nineteen lithographs by Grant Wood from the 2015 exhibition Grant Wood's Lithographs: A Regionalist Vision Set in Stone at the Hillstrom Museum of Art in St. Peter, Minnesota.
Notes
Created in 1938
Object File Reviewed
America's most famous painter of the American Scene, Grant Wood, first won wide attention on when "American Gothic" was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930. Overnight he became a success. Precisely meticulous in detail with humor and occasional satire, his paintings have poignantly captured the rural scenes of Midwestern life. Grant Wood grew up in rural Iowa, teaching himself to draw in his leisure time. He later studied at the University of Iowa, the Art Institute of Chicago, and in Europe. During his studies in
Paris, he went Bohemian. He grew an astonishing "pink" beard, read H. 1. Mencken and was almost convinced that the Midwest was culturally barren and inhibited. In Paris he began to paint the "sleazy artifices of impressionism" only to realize , unhappily, that these canvases might have borne the signature of any number of his European contemporaries. For him , they said nothing! He went on to Germany to study the early German masters. He began to analyze what it was that he really knew. "Suddenly I realized that all the really good ideas I'd ever had, came to me when I was milking a cow. So I went back to Iowa." Back home, his precise technique limited him to painting on the average of only two pictures a year. About "American Gothic" he said: "In southern Iowa I saw a low, white farmhouse with a peaked gable and a single Gothic window, and I imagined American Gothic people with their faces stretched out long to go with this American Gothic house and so I drew them. "
From Famous American Paintings assembled for the State Fair of TX 1948, exh cat from Piction
Wood, Grant (American, 1891-1942)
Cultures
Geography
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
From 2000: Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts, The Alfred and Juanita Bromberg Collection, bequest of Juanita K. Bromberg
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VIDEO ASSETS
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