American Gothic Painting Grant Wood 1930

It depicts a farmer standing beside his daughter often mistakenly assumed to be his wife.

American gothic painting grant wood 1930.

As an act of reassurance just as the great depression was beginning to bite. It depicts presumably a farming couple either married or a father and daughter standing in front of their frame house with a large gothic window. Readers were outraged by wood s portrayal of them as grim faced puritans. The models on the painting were wood s sister nan wearing a colonial print apron mimicking 19th century americana and wood s dentist dr.

He was inspired to paint what is now known as the american gothic house in eldon iowa along with the kind of people he fancied should live in that house. In august 1930 grant wood an american painter with european training was driven around eldon iowa by a young painter from eldon john sharp. Adding a frame to finish this american gothic c 1930 art print is the best way to not only protect it but easily hang it as wall decor. Byron mckeeby from iowa.

Shown is a farmer and his spinster daughter in front of their house. Wood painted the house along with the people he imagined might live there. The two people living in their sturdy well crafted wooden house armed with their down to earth qualities of resilience fortitude and pride represent those who are most likely to overcome the hardship of the 1930s. Grant wood is known for his stylized and subtly humorous scenes of rural people iowa cornfields and mythic subjects from american history such as the art institute s iconic painting american gothic 1930.

In 1930 grant wood submitted his painting american gothic to a show at the art institute of chicago. Looking for inspiration wood noticed the dibble house a small white house built in the carpenter gothic architectural style. American gothic is a 1930 painting by grant wood in the collection of the art institute of chicago. Visiting eldon iowa in the summer of 1930 the artist was struck by a little white cottage with a single oversized window created in a style known as carpenter gothic.

Along with other midwestern regionalist painters like john steuart curry and thomas hart benton wood advocated for a realistic style and recognizable subjects that showed local places and common people a radically different approach from european modernism and its push toward. But in fact wood created american gothic as an affirmative statement about traditional american values. He sketched out the house on an envelope determined to use it as a backdrop in what would become his most famous painting. Grant devolson wood february 13 1891 february 12 1942 was an american painter best known for his paintings depicting the rural american midwest particularly american gothic 1930 which has become an iconic painting of the 20th century.