Grant DeVolson Wood
(Feb. 13, 1891 – Feb. 12, 1942)
“American Gothic”
Presentation Materials
Background
Student Costumes:
Boy: Black Jacket, Overalls, Glasses and Pitchfork
Girl: Dress, rubber band for hair
(You will need two volunteers: a boy and a girl who are willing to wear the costume andone or two other volunteers to hold the backdrop.)
We are going to create a picture. What does an artist do when he is going to create a picture? He decides where he is going to put things in the painting, what colors to use, soft or bold lines. He also thinks about texture, light and shadow. These are some of the things you would want to think about the picture we are about to create.
(When the girl and boy are ready have them stand in front of the house backdrop.) Look carefully at our subjects. Do you ever remember seeing a composition or painting that looked something like this? (Give the students a minute to think and give you their guesses. Turn the painting. Let the students react to the painting and say what they think about the people in the painting.) The man who painted this is an American named Grant Wood and the name of this painting is American Gothic.
(Skip this part for younger grades) Grant Wood painted this in 1930. Around this time people in the art community in America considered modern abstract art, like that of Picasso and Matisse, to be the prominent art of the day. But some artists felt that the answer to America’s search for its own true native style was realism. To them national art should show Americans in their familiar settings, preferably simple folk realistically portrayed against a rural backdrop. What was going on in our country in 1930? (The Great Depression) Life was hard, people lost jobs and homes and had to struggle just for the basics. It made people feel better to look at Grant Wood’s paintings of beautiful farmlands and proud, hardworking families.
Artist Biography
Grant Wood was born on the family farm outside of Anamosa, Iowa on February 13, 1891. As a young child he loved farm life and this love continued throughout his life. When he was 3, he began drawing – chickens! Later on, lacking traditional art supplies, he used brown wrapping paper and bits of charred wood dug from the family stove to draw with.
His Quaker (a member of the Religious Society of Friends, a Christian movement devoted to peaceful principles) father was knownas a “factual” man. Perhaps his father’s no-nonsense, Mid-Western persuasion influenced Grant’s artistic decision to paint “real” subjects as opposed to the abstract. His father dies when Grant was 10 years. After his father’s death, the farm was taken from the family due to financial problems. Grant, his mother, and sister moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Here for a period of nine years Grant did odd jobs – lawn care, house painting, truck gardening (a market garden, a farm raising produce meant to be sold locally) and milking -- while practicing his drawing each night. In 1913 he enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and did some work as a silversmith.
Wood decided he could make a living doing handicrafts until his art would support him. He took classes in wood and metal and sustained himself as a forge assistant and night watchman in a morgue! At the same time, he opened a handicraft shop and took “sneak” classes at the University of Iowa. Though he wasn’t registered there he began an art class by convincing the professor he has “lost” his registration. He attended that class for more than a year tuition-free! While he didn’t feel he was learning what he wanted, the attendance at the class did convince him that he wanted more training.
He moved to Chicago, started attending the Art Institute at night and worked daily in a jewelry store. Shortly after, the World War I broke out and he was drafted at 23. But he never went past boot camp because he became very ill so never actually served.
After the war he returned to Cedar Rapids and began to teach art in public schools to support his mother and save money for a trip to Paris – where every artist must go! From 1920 to 1928 he made four trips to Europe where he studied many styles of painting, especially impressionism and post-impressionism. But he abandoned his impressionist style after a trip to Germany. He was strongly influenced by the 15th Century German and Flemish paintings and started using a more detailed, realistic technique.
His first important painting was John B. Turner, Pioneer. Turner, the subject of the canvas was in reality a local undertaker who had befriended Wood. But then came American Gothic and he was an overnight success.
Wood worked slowly, averaging only two paintings a year, but was meticulous concerning accuracy. His slow paining pace meant he had to supplement his income in order to sustain himself. He taught art at IowaState and he insisted his students use brown wrapping paper for practice!
Grant Wood helped found the Stone City Art Colony near his hometown to help artists get through the Great Depression. He became a great proponent of regionalism* in arts. In 1935 he married Sara Sherman but they were divorced 5 years later. After divorcing his wife, he retired from teaching to paint full time. He died in 1942 on February 12, one day before his 51st birthday of liver cancer.
Painting Description
Grant Wood painted the American Gothic in 1930. The painting shows a farmer standing beside a woman whose identity remains ambiguous: she may either be his spinster daughter of the farmer’s wife. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron mimicking 19th century Americana and the couple is in the traditional roles of men and women. The man’s pitchfork symbolizing hard labor and the flowers over the woman’s shoulder suggesting domesticity. These two gaunt figures, actually Wood’s sister and his dentist, for him were a representation of the typical small-town Midwestern couple with values that he knew well. He viewed them as strong and solid people who contributed to form the real fiber of America.
The house on this painting was inspired by house he saw in Eldon, Iowa (still standing today). When he saw the house he decided to paint it and paint the people who he thought might live there. It has Gothic arched windows on its second-story are what give the painting its name. Look for the repeating patterns in this painting (gothic arch in the windows, the pitchfork, the pitchfork shape on the bib of the farmer’s overall). Each element of the painting was painted separately; the models: his sister and his dentist sat separately and never stood in front of the house.
But Wood’s guileless intent was misunderstood by the farm folk who felt that the painting ridiculed them. They deluged Wood with phone calls and threatening letters to the local newspaper. But it was all smoothed over when Nan, Grant’s sister wrote to the paper that she was proud to have modeled for her brother. The statement seemed to vanquish the furor and the locals began showering Grant with vegetables and homemade breads.
American Gothic has become one of the most familiar images in the 20th century American art and one of the most parodied artworks within American popular culture.
*Regionalism: An American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930’s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life and rapidly developing technological advances, to create sense of rural life.