February 13
AMERICAN GOTHIC DAY
The artist who is most remembered for portraying the architecture, landscape and people of 1930s Midwestern U.S. was born on this day in 1891, in Anamosa, Iowa. Grant Wood studied at the University of Iowa, taught there and made Iowa the focus of his paintings.
Wood was not only a teacher, but a printer, sculptor, woodworker and one of America’s first ‘regionalist’ painters. His was a style that was purely American. He portrayed scenes of Midwestern rural life as well as simplified, childlike versions of American history. His first works were unique in that they combined photographic realism with satire. His painting, Daughters of the Revolution was an example of Wood’s beginning style. Dinner for Threshers, Young Corn, Fall Plowing and Stone City are representative of his Middle Western realism.
And, there is hardly a soul who hasn’t viewed the most famous Grant Wood, American Gothic. It has appeared in satirical situations on television, in magazines and newspapers. Its fame is such that many who have seen it have never even been in an art museum, yet American Gothic is recognizable just the same. The painting of the puritanical farmer and his wife (or daughter), the farmer holding a pitchfork, is on display at The Art Institute of Chicago.
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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