Grant Wood: The Complete Story
Grant Wood painted the two most parodied faces in American art using his sister and his dentist, won 300 dollars for it, and spent the rest of his life explaining what he meant. He never quite did, which is why the painting never dies.
Behind American Gothic stands a shy Iowan who found his style not on a farm but in a German museum, staring at Flemish altarpieces.
Grant Wood at a glance:
Born on a farm near Anamosa, Iowa, in 1891.
Found his style in Munich in 1928, copying the precision of Flemish altarpieces.
American Gothic won a 300 dollar prize at the Art Institute in 1930.
The models were his sister Nan and his dentist, Byron McKeeby.
Died the day before his 51st birthday, in 1942.
Iowa first, always
Wood was born on a farm near Anamosa, Iowa, on February 13, 1891. After his father died in 1901 the family moved to Cedar Rapids, the town he worked in nearly all his life as a decorator, metalworker, and art teacher. Four trips to Europe in the 1920s left little trace until the last one.
Munich, 1928: the Flemish shock
Sent to Munich in 1928 to supervise the fabrication of a stained-glass window for Cedar Rapids, Wood spent his free hours with the Flemish primitives in the Alte Pinakothek.
Memling's crisp detail and rounded volumes hit him harder than Paris ever had. He came home, dropped his loose impressionist manner, and began painting Iowa with the precision of a fifteenth-century altarpiece.
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American Gothic, 1930: sister, dentist, 300 dollars
Driving through Eldon, Iowa, Wood spotted a small white farmhouse with a Gothic window and imagined the kind of people who should live in it.
His sister Nan posed as the woman, his dentist Byron McKeeby held the pitchfork, painted separately over several weeks. The Art Institute of Chicago gave the picture a 300 dollar prize in 1930 and bought it.
Newspapers ran it nationwide, Iowans wrote furious letters about being mocked, and Wood was suddenly the face of American art.
The myth: satire or love letter
Ever since 1930 the question has been whether American Gothic laughs at rural America or salutes it.
Wood, characteristically, refused to pick, saying the pair were meant as father and daughter, not husband and wife, and that he was one of the people he painted.
Daughters of Revolution in 1932, three matrons in front of Washington Crossing the Delaware, shows he could be openly sharp when he chose. The ambiguity of Gothic was a choice too.
Regionalism, and an early end
With Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry, Wood became a face of Regionalism, the 1930s movement that said American art should grow from American soil.
He ran the Stone City Art Colony in 1932 and 1933 and taught at the University of Iowa. He died of pancreatic cancer on February 12, 1942, the day before his 51st birthday.
American Gothic is at the Art Institute of Chicago, the largest Wood collection is at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, and the Eldon house still stands.
The decorator's hands behind the icon
Before fame, Wood made his living with his hands: metalwork, stained glass, interiors for Cedar Rapids businesses.
That craftsman's finish is the secret of the paintings. The rounded trees and porcelain faces are built like inlay, closer to a jeweler's work than to oil sketching.
The overalls war
Iowa farm wives wrote furious letters in 1930, one threatening to bite his ear off, sure the painting mocked them.
Wood answered by insisting he was one of them, and the state came around: within a decade the parodied couple had become Iowa's unofficial coat of arms.
What the parodies prove
American Gothic may be the most parodied painting alive: presidents, cereal boxes, The Simpsons, Grant Wood's pair endures them all.
Nan kept a scrapbook of every parody she could find. An image that survives infinite mockery has stopped being a picture and become a language.
The Grant Wood questions that keep coming up
Who are the people in American Gothic? His sister Nan Wood Graham and his dentist Byron McKeeby, posed separately in 1930. Wood said they were a farmer and his daughter, not a couple.
Is American Gothic a satire? Wood kept it ambiguous, calling it an appreciation painted from the inside. His openly satirical side shows elsewhere, in Daughters of Revolution.
Where is American Gothic? At the Art Institute of Chicago, which awarded it a 300 dollar prize in 1930 and has owned it ever since.
Can you visit the American Gothic house? Yes. The white cottage with the Gothic window stands in Eldon, Iowa, with a visitor center that lends out aprons and pitchforks for photos.
Where is the American Gothic house? In Eldon, Iowa, still standing, with a visitor center that lends out aprons and pitchforks for photographs.
Did Grant Wood paint other satires? Daughters of Revolution of 1932, three matrons before Washington Crossing the Delaware, shows the openly sharp side he kept out of American Gothic.
More secrets to unlock
One last fact
Nan Wood Graham, the reluctant face of American Gothic, spent decades defending the painting, kept a scrapbook of every parody, and lived until 1990, long enough to see her scowl become the most borrowed image in American culture.