Grant Wood, 1891-1942

By Aliya Trovoada

American Gothic, 1930, oil on Beaverboard

We have all seen the image of the midwestern couple holding a pitchfork or the many parodies of it, but most know very little about the artist who created the iconic painting. Grant Wood was born on February 13th, 1891 in a rural town in Iowa. Throughout his teenage years, Wood worked as a silversmith and, in 1913, he enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He gained some financial stability through his different jobs as a silversmith and high school art teacher. This was crucial to the development of his art practice as it allowed him to take summer trips to Europe to study art. Wood studied many styles of painting, but it was mainly Impressionism which inspired him to create a unique style of art in America.

The Great Depression was a period which significantly altered the lives and practices of many artists, including Wood. He was closely associated with the artistic movement of Regionalism, which focused on paintings of rural American themes in the Midwest as a rejection of European abstraction of the time. American Gothic (1930) stands as a clear example of Wood’s desire to capture rural America. It depicts a farmer and his daughter standing in front of a Gothic Revival-style cottage. The man is modelled after Wood’s dentist, whilst the woman is after his sister Nan. That Wood chose a family member and someone he personally knew – both ordinary people – as the models for this work, shows his deep respect for the rural community in the United States. The subjects are portrayed with traditional roles for men and women at the time, the man’s pitchfork symbolising hard labour and the woman dressed in the domestic garb of a dark print apron. These elements depict a sense of stoicism and solemnity, reflecting Americans' simplicity and resilience during the Great Depression.

Daughters of Revolution, 1932, oil on Masonite

Wood and other Regionalist artists created art that resonated with and directly spoke to the American people. American Gothic became an iconic artwork, not only nationally but internationally. Wood continued to develop other notable works, such as Daughters of Revolution (1932), which further showed his ability to capture the complex dynamics of American society. Many critics at the time didn’t appreciate Wood’s work and criticised it as overly sentimental; some were also unnerved by the masculine features of the female figures in his paintings. The claims regarding Wood’s sexuality vary from critic to critic, but a majority believe that he was a closeted homosexual. These claims have affected the perception of Wood’s art, leading many to believe that his art was fascinated with changing the genders of its subjects.

Grant Wood passed away in 1942 at the age of fifty-one, but his legacy is not forgotten. His works truly left a mark on the art world at the time and continue to be some of the most recognisable—and parodied—in art history.

Bibliography

Baigell, Matthew. 1966. “Grant Wood Revisited.” Art Journal 26 (2): 116–22. https://doi.org/10.2307/775034.

Corn, Wanda M. and Grant Wood. 1983. “The Birth of a National Icon: Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic.’” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 10: 253–75. https://doi.org/10.2307/4104340.

“Grant Wood.” Art Institute of Chicago. Accessed 29 January 2024. https://www.artic.edu/artists/37343/grant-wood.

Kennicott, Philip. 2018. “The Wonderfully Queer World of ‘American Gothic’s’ Grant Wood.” The Washington Post. February 3, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/museums/the-wonderfully-queer-world-of-american-gothics-grant-wood/2018/03/02/a65344d0-1e2f-11e8-b2d9-08e748f892c0_story.html.

Schjeldahl, Peter. “Beyond ‘American Gothic.’” The New Yorker. May 3, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/beyond-american-gothic.