Though painted in 1931, there is no hint in this portrayal of the President's cabin birthplace in West Branch, Iowa, that an economic Depression was in full force across the country. Wood's farm scenes are lush and idealized, even the foliage of the trees becomes exotic and almost tropical in the artist's stylization.
Wood was born on a farm near Anamosa in 1891 and was raised in Cedar Rapids. He received formal art training in Minneapolis, Chicago and, after World War I in which he served as a designer of foliage, in Paris. He taught in the public schools in Cedar Rapids until 1925.Wood co-founded an art school in Stone City in 1932 and two years later was named director of the Public Works of Art Project in Iowa, and also was appointed to the art faculty at the University of Iowa. His first lithographs were printed in 1937. Wood died of cancer in Iowa City in 1942.
Source: Bulletin, September-October, 1982.
Exhibition History"Commitment, Community and Controversy: The Des Moines Art Center Collections," Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, January 24, 1998 - May 10, 1998
"Grant Wood: An American Master Revealed," Worcester Art Museum, MA, Oct. 6 - Dec. 31, 1996
"Ten Centuries of American Art," The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN, Feb. 4 - April 5, 1995, Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO, June 15 - Sept. 4, 1994; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, OH, Oct. - Dec. 1995; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, Mar. 10 - May 19., 1996; The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, July 6 - Sept. 22, 1996
"Grant Wood," organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, MN; (Circulated to: Whitney Museum of American Art, June 16 - Sept. 4, 1983; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Sept. 25 - Jan. 1, 1984; Art Institute of Chicago, Jan. 21 - Apr. 15, 1984; M. H. DeYoung Memorial Museum, San Francisco, Ca., May 12 - Aug. 12, 1984)
"Mid-America in the Thirties: The Regionalist Art of Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood," Des Moines Art Center, Dec. 10, 1965 - Jan. 16, 1966
Published ReferencesPROLOGUE, (Quarterly of the National Archives), Vol.21, No.2, b/w ill. p.118
Karal Ann Marling, "Don't Knock Wood," ART NEWS, Vol.82, No.7, ref. p.95 & 99, color ill. p.95
Larry Woiwode, "Against the Grain," ART & ANTIQUES, Vol.VI, No.1, color ill. pp.80 & 81
"Mid-America in the Thirties: The Regionalist Art of Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood," Des Moines Art Center, 1965, exh. cat. no.54
DMAC Bulletin, Sept./Oct. 1982
"Art Across North America," APOLLO MAGAZINE, Nov. 1982, ill. p.335
DES MOINES REGISTER, Mar. 30, 1982, ill.
MINNEAPOLIS TRIBUNE, Mar. 30, 1982, ill.
Jane H. Hancock and Samuel Sachs II, "The Modern Movement," APOLLO MAGAZINE, Mar. 1983, ref. pp.249 & 250, ill. p.250
Wanda Corn, GRANT WOOD: THE REGIONALIST VISION, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 1983, exh. cat. ref. pp.83 & 84, color ill. pl.11, p.85
George Tapley, "God's Eye-View," MIDWEST ART, Fall 1983, Vol. II, No. III, pp.26 - 29, 45 - 49, color ill. p.29
Jeff Perrone, review of MIA's Grant Wood exhibition, IMAGES AND ISSUES, July/Aug. 1984, ref. p.46
DES MOINES ART CENTER: SELECTED PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES AND WORKS ON PAPER, Des Moines Art Center, 1985, ref. pp.216 & 217, color ill. pl.XXXII, p.128
James M. Dennis, GRANT WOOD: A STUDY IN AMERICAN ART AND CULTURE, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, 1986 (first published in 1975 by The Viking Press, Inc.), ref. p.239, color pl. no.19, p.173 (mentions that the painting was purchased by Gardner Cowles from Ferargil Gallery in 1934)
Janet A. Simons, Donald B. Irwin, & Beverly A. Drinnin, PSYCHOLOGY: THE SEARCH FOR UNDERSTANDING, West Publishing Co., St. Paul, MN, 1987, photo credits and credit line on frontise piece, included in chapter six in article "Art and Life," pp. 145 & 146, color ill. p.146, artist's name index p.693
PROFESSIONAL CATALOG, BOOKS, FILMS, VIDEO, & NONPRINT, Grant Wood Area Education Media Center, 1988, color cover ill.
LAWNS AND GROUND COVERS, THE TIME-LIFE GARDENER'S GUIDE, Time-Life Books, Alexandria, VA, 1989, color ill.
"Travel Guide," Reader's Digest, 1994, color ill. p.162
OUR IOWA HOME (Supplement to multi-media program designed for Iowa schools), 1995, color cover ill.
DMAC News, Jan./Feb. 1995, p.4
"Grant Wood, An American Master Revealed," Davenport Museum of Art, IA, 1996, exh. cat. color ill. p.78
THE 1997 ANNUAL GIVING REPORT, The Herbert Hoover Presedential Library Association, 1998, color ill. p.10
AN UNCOMMON VISION: THE DES MOINES ART CENTER, Des Moines Art Center, 1998, ref. pp.34 & 291, color detail p.291, color ill. p.290
Richard Shiff, Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, and Heidi Colsman-Freybeger, BARNETT NEWMAN: A CATALOGUE RAISONNE, The Barnett Newman Foundation, Yale University Press, 2004, pg. 5
GRANT WOOD'S STUDIO: BIRTHPLACE OF AMERICAN GOTHIC, Edited by Jane Milosch, Prestel, 2005, ref. pp.
GRANT WOOD: THE BIRTHPLACE OF HERBERT HOOVER, Adventures In Art series, Prestel Publishing, 2005, pg.6
Haskell, Barbara "Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables", Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2018, color il. pg.134, ref pg. 23,54,55,73,249, 259.
Image (visible): 29 3/4 × 40 in. (75.6 × 101.6 cm)
Images (1)
Audio (1)
DSM Speaks Audio Tour with JJ Kapur, Community Member
Run Time: 2:47
Recorded by JJ Kapur, CultureALL Community Ambassador / 2022
I noticed a girl standing next to me dressed in a hijab and a sweatshirt. We admired this Grant Wood painting together. After a while she said, “I love how he painted the trees. The leaves really pop out.” “That’s true!” I told her. “Normally trees are in the background.” The girl looked at me and said with a smile, “This painting is friendly. It’s the only painting here that really invited me in.” Inviting. I liked that word. That’s how I felt about Iowa, a place that really invited my family in.
I learned the girl was an exchange student from Lebanon, about to go to university to study art. I told her that shortly after my Indian parents settled down in Des Moines the floods of ‘93 happened, which left many Iowans without drinking water or electricity. My father was awe-struck as he witnessed everyday Iowans handing out free bottles of water, sandbagging the river, and donating food and clothes. He later learned a phrase for the acts of kindness he’d experienced, “Iowa Nice”. A phenomenon that convinced him to raise his family in Iowa.
I told the girl that I had actually visited Herbert Hoover’s birthplace when I was in high school. Her face lit up when I told her this. I could see that for her the leaves on the tress did more than just pop out, they suddenly came to life.
Hoover’s home was as small as Grant Wood painted it. When I walked inside Herbert Hoover’s childhood home in less than seven footsteps I was already outside the backdoor. Two years later when I began my freshmen year of college at Stanford University, I asked someone what the enormous tower on campus was called. The Hoover Tower I was told, named after Herbert Hoover. A student in Staford’s pioneer class in 1891. My eyes climbed the 285-foot structure, I thought back to Hoover’s two room cottage in Iowa. For the first time Stanford felt inviting. As a first-year college student, in a brand-new place, I no longer felt so far away from home.
JJ Kapur Bio
Jeevanjot “JJ” Singh Kapur was born and raised in West Des Moines, IA, graduating from Valley High School in 2018. JJ went on to attend Stanford University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with Honors and Distinction in Theater and Performance Studies and a minor in Psychology. In 2017, JJ became the first turbaned Sikh to win the nation’s most prestigious high school speech and debate competition.
DES MOINES SPEAKS
DSM Speaks are short audio reflections on artwork in our permanent collection, written and voiced by diverse members of our community. Contributors to this program were selected in partnership with CultureALL and the Des Moines Art Center. We hope by elevating these diverse ways of seeing we can encourage all visitors to connect more deeply and to see themselves and their identities within our walls.
