Grant Wood

He claimed to be “the plainest kind of fellow you can find. There isn’t a single thing I’ve done, or experienced,” said Grant Wood, “that’s been even the least bit exciting.” Wood was one of America’s most famous regionalist painters; to love his work was the equivalent of loving America itself. In his time, he was an “almost mythical figure,” recognized most supremely for his hard-boiled farm scene, American Gothic, a painting that has come to reflect the essence of America’s traditional values—a simple, decent, homespun tribute to our lost agrarian age. In this major new biography of America’s most acclaimed, and misunderstood, regionalist painter, Grant Wood is revealed to have been anything but plain, or simple . . . R. Tripp Evans reveals the true complexity of the man and the image Wood so carefully constructed of himself. Grant Wood called himself a farmer-painter but farming held little interest for him. He appeared to be a self-taught painter with his scenes of farmlands, farm workers, and folklore but he was classically trained, a sophisticated artist who had studied the Old Masters and Flemish art as well as impressionism. He lived a bohemian life and painted in Paris and Munich in the 1920s, fleeing what H. L. Mencken referred to as “the booboisie” of small-town America. We see Wood as an artist haunted and inspired by the images of childhood; by the complex relationship with his father (stern, pious, the “manliest of men”); with his sister and his beloved mother (Wood shared his studio and sleeping quarters with his mother until her death at seventy-seven; he was forty-four). We see Wood’s homosexuality and how his studied masculinity was a ruse that shaped his work. Here is Wood’s life and work explored more deeply and insightfully than ever before. Drawing on letters, the artist’s unfinished autobiography, his sister’s writings, and many never-before-seen documents, Evans’s book is a dimensional portrait of a deeply complicated artist who became a “National Symbol.” It is as well a portrait of the American art scene at a time when America’s Calvinistic spirit and provincialism saw Europe as decadent and artists were divided between red-blooded patriotic men and “hothouse aesthetes.” Thomas Hart Benton said of Grant Wood: “When this new America looks back for landmarks to help gauge its forward footsteps, it will find a monument standing up in the midst of the wreckage . . . This monument will be made out of Grant Wood’s works.”

Richly illustrated, the book examines Wood's modernist tendencies, ranging from abstract design principles to the lasting influence of paintings by Georges Seurat and German Neue Schlichkeit artists. Also provides the most detailed account available of the artists working methods.

The social and political climate in which Wood's art flourished bears certain striking similarities to America today, as national identity and the tension between urban and rural areas reemerge as polarizing issues in a country facing the consequences of globalization and the technological revolution. Wood portrayed the tension and alienation of contemporary experience. By fusing meticulously observed reality with fables of childhood, he crafted unsettling images of estrangement and apprehension that pictorially manifest the anxiety of modern life.

Incorporating copious archival research and original close readings of American artist Grant Wood’s iconic as well as lesser-known works, Grant Wood’s Secrets reveals how his sometimes anguished psychology was shaped by his close relationship with his mother and how he channeled his lifelong oedipal guilt into his art. Presenting Wood’s abortive autobiography "Return from Bohemia" for the first time ever, Sue Taylor integrates the artist’s own recollections into interpretations of his art. As Wood dressed in overalls and boasted about his beloved Midwest, he consciously engaged in regionalist strategies, performing a farmer masquerade of sorts. In doing so, he also posed as conventionally masculine, hiding his homosexuality from his rural community. Thus, he came to experience himself as a double man. This book conveys the very real threats under which Wood lived and pays tribute to his resourceful responses, which were often duplicitous and have baffled art historians who typically take them at face value.

Be transported into the private and cherished world of this celebrated American icon with tour of Grant Wood's home state.. Grant Wood, Iowa native, iconic Regionalist American artist, certainly left his mark on his home state. Wood’s American Gothic is one of America’s most recognizable paintings, his boyhood home is a registered landmark, and collections of his work grace museums far and near. Now you can tour his state with five itineraries that provide a detailed exploration of the historical context for his work. Grant Wood’s Iowa explores his role in the art world with self-guided museum tours, detailed discussions of specific works, information on the finest lodging and dining in the state, and, finally, “green” travel options, including rural bed and breakfasts, restaurants offering local organic menus, nightlife with local artists, and nature hikes to experience the landscape that inspired Wood. You’ll be transported into the private and cherished world of this celebrated American icon.

Catalogue of a traveling exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and other galleries.

This enticing tour through Grant Wood's Cedar Rapids hayloft studio welcomes young readers into the world of an iconic, rural American artist whose rich, stylised paintings have an immediate appeal to children. Using reproductions and details from Wood's masterpieces as well as lesser-known works, Deba Foxley Leach explores the inspiration that Wood drew from his childhood, family history and love of small-town life. Leach draws readers into the works by pointing out fascinating details that will appeal to children's innate curiosity, while the book's brilliant colour and accessible design will make it appealing for a wide range of ages. Illustrations throughout