Grant Wood
Grant Wood (1891–1942) was an American painter whose precise, stylized portrayals of Midwestern people and places include the iconic American Gothic.
American Gothic: Grant Wood’s 1930 painting of a farmer and a woman standing before a Carpenter Gothic house. Its stern figures became Wood’s best-known image and a lasting emblem of Midwestern life.
Regionalism (American art): A 1930s American art movement that depicted recognizable people, places, and cultures outside major cities. Wood became one of its leading painters by making rural Iowa a subject of national art.
Anamosa, Iowa: A city in eastern Iowa where Grant Wood was born in 1891. Wood’s birthplace links his life to the region he later made central to his art.
Stone City Art Colony: An artists’ community founded near Stone City, Iowa, in 1932, with Grant Wood among its founders. Wood helped build a regional institution that brought artists to the landscape he painted.
Daughters of Revolution: Grant Wood’s 1932 painting satirizing the Daughters of the American Revolution through three primly posed women. Its pointed humor shows Wood’s less-affectionate treatment of American heritage.
Thomas Hart Benton: An American painter and muralist known for energetic scenes of regional life and history. Like Benton, Wood gave rural American subjects prominence during the rise of Regionalism.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa: A city in eastern Iowa where Grant Wood grew up and established his career. Wood’s home city shaped his artistic identity and later housed his teaching and studio work.
New Deal art: Art created in connection with U.S. government programs during the Great Depression. Wood’s Regionalist outlook influenced debates about art’s national identity during the New Deal era.
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: Grant Wood’s 1931 painting of Paul Revere’s ride, rendered as a simplified, maplike New England townscape. Its childlike perspective reveals how Wood reshaped historical subjects through stylization.
John Steuart Curry: An American painter whose narrative images portrayed Kansas life, history, and natural disasters. Curry shared Wood’s focus on the people and stories of the American heartland.