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Grant Wood
1891–1942
BirthplaceAnamosa, Iowa, United States of America
Death placeIowa City, Iowa, United States of America
BiographyGrant Wood created iconic images of American history and the midwestern heartland that explore national mythmaking with a combination of gentle irony, subtle humor, and affection for the places and people he knew intimately. Wood was born in an agricultural town not far from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to which his family moved when he was ten years old, following his father's death. After graduating from high school, he studied design, metalworking, and painting at the Minneapolis School of Design and Handicraft and Normal Art and at the University of Iowa while teaching elementary school. Between 1913 and early 1916, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago's prestigious school and worked as a silversmith. Following World War I service on the homefront as a camouflage designer, Wood returned to Iowa to teach and exhibited his paintings in a Cedar Rapids department store.
During the 1920s Wood made four trips to Europe. He studied the work of late-nineteenth century French painters but was also drawn to the polished technique and archaic methods of northern Renaissance masters. In 1924, he established his own studio, and the following year he gave up teaching to do free-lance work as a designer and decorator while exhibiting his paintings locally and at such national venues as the Art Institute of Chicago. There, in 1930, he won a medal for his American Gothic, a "portrait" of a stereotypical Midwestern farm couple, which the museum purchased. In 1932 and 1933, Wood ran a seasonal art school known as the Stone City Colony and Art School, near Anamosa, Iowa. In 1934, he began teaching at the University of Iowa.
In the mid-1930s, Wood was at the peak of his fame. He created murals and book illustrations as well as paintings and, beginning in 1937, lithographic prints. Widely celebrated, he was popularly associated with Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry as the so-called regionalists—artists who championed American rural life in their straightforwardly representational images. Wood was elected in 1935 to the venerable National Academy of Design in New York. He traveled as far as New York and the West Coast as an active member of the contemporary art world, but he remained deeply identified with the old-fashioned rural and small-town Iowa he pictured. At the University of Iowa, however, Wood drew controversy as a champion of traditional technique and practice at a time when the national art scene was split between conservative, representational artists and those experimenting with abstraction. In the midst of this turmoil, Wood succumbed to liver cancer at the age of fifty-one. In the decades since, he has remained one of America's most widely recognized artists, largely thanks to the monumental status of American Gothic.
During the 1920s Wood made four trips to Europe. He studied the work of late-nineteenth century French painters but was also drawn to the polished technique and archaic methods of northern Renaissance masters. In 1924, he established his own studio, and the following year he gave up teaching to do free-lance work as a designer and decorator while exhibiting his paintings locally and at such national venues as the Art Institute of Chicago. There, in 1930, he won a medal for his American Gothic, a "portrait" of a stereotypical Midwestern farm couple, which the museum purchased. In 1932 and 1933, Wood ran a seasonal art school known as the Stone City Colony and Art School, near Anamosa, Iowa. In 1934, he began teaching at the University of Iowa.
In the mid-1930s, Wood was at the peak of his fame. He created murals and book illustrations as well as paintings and, beginning in 1937, lithographic prints. Widely celebrated, he was popularly associated with Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry as the so-called regionalists—artists who championed American rural life in their straightforwardly representational images. Wood was elected in 1935 to the venerable National Academy of Design in New York. He traveled as far as New York and the West Coast as an active member of the contemporary art world, but he remained deeply identified with the old-fashioned rural and small-town Iowa he pictured. At the University of Iowa, however, Wood drew controversy as a champion of traditional technique and practice at a time when the national art scene was split between conservative, representational artists and those experimenting with abstraction. In the midst of this turmoil, Wood succumbed to liver cancer at the age of fifty-one. In the decades since, he has remained one of America's most widely recognized artists, largely thanks to the monumental status of American Gothic.