Sultry Night

Grant Wood's lithograph Sultry Night is a realistic depiction of a naked farmer standing beside a horse trough in the act of drenching himself with a bucket of water at the end of a hot summer work day. The right side of the image is filled by a fence post and the trunk and dense foliage of a tree; placed near the left edge of the composition, the farmer is exposed against the flat expanse of the field as it slopes gently upward to meet the open sky on a flat horizon punctuated only by a distant small tree. Using the soft grainy effects of the lithographic crayon to suggest forms by subtle gradations of tone, Wood created a calm scene that throws into relief the unexpected nudity of the farmer, whose white torso contrasts with his suntanned face, neck, chest, and arms. The image suggests a biblical baptism, but Wood himself claimed that he was merely representing a daily activity typical of American farm life, noting that "In my boyhood no farms had tile and chromium bathrooms. After long days in the fields, and after the chores were done, we used to go down to the horse tank with a pail. The sun would have taken the chill off the top layer of water; we would dip up pailsful [sic] and drench ourselves" (quoted in The Gloria and Donald B. Marron Collection of American Prints, p. 130).

For his somewhat idealized depictions of farming, small-town life, and the changing seasons in the Midwest, Wood's contemporaries considered him one of the so-called regionalists, American artists who created accessible representational images of daily life in the American heartland. Notwithstanding his success as a painter, during the Great Depression financial concerns led Wood to make a number of more easily saleable lithographs, including both Sultry Night and January (TF 1995.54). Because of the full frontal nudity in Sultry Night, however, this print was deemed indecent by the U. S. postal service. Associated American Artists, Wood's New York gallery, was not permitted to distribute this lithograph by mail, nor could it be cited in their catalogue. The gallery could sell Sultry Night only "over the counter." Because of these restrictions, it was more difficult to market and accordingly was printed in a smaller edition of one hundred, rather than the artist's usual edition of 250 impressions. For centuries, artists have drawn the nude figure as part of the traditional training for and practice of figurative art. With Sultry Night, Wood encountered not only a conservative climate in American mores but concerns that American art should promote "wholesome" values and moral uplift. The spectacle of a contemporary Midwestern farmer undressed and outside proved more shocking than any classical or allegorical nude by virtue of his very ordinariness.

Dennis, James M. Grant Wood: A Study in American Art and Culture. New York: Viking Press, 1975. Text p. 220; fig. 184.

Czestochowski, Joseph S. John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood: A Portrait of Rural America. Columbia, Missouri and Cedar Rapids, Iowa: University of Missouri Press and Cedar Rapids Art Association, 1981. No. W-6, p. 208.

The Gloria and Donald B. Marron Collection of American Prints. (exh. cat., Santa Barbara Museum of Art). Santa Barbara, California: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1981. No. 87, p. 130–31.

Corn, Wanda M. Grant Wood: The Regionalist Vision. New Haven, Connecticut and London, England: Yale University Press for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1983. Fig. 87, p. 52.

Cole, Sylvan, Jr. Grant Wood: The Lithographs; A Catalogue Raisonné. New York: Associated American Artists, 1984. No. 6.