Art Of The People - Grant Wood

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• Ceit

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It's been a while since the last biographical meeting, and I did just see Wood's studio and gigantic window. His name is not as famous as Da Vinci's or Van Gogh's, but Grant Wood's most famous painting is on the same level as their most famous works today. They are even peers in terms of parody. The style Wood became famous for became known as Regionalism, a style that seems to revere the quiet countryside and small town life of the America of old, before the weight of the Industrial Revolution fully set in and the urbanization of the country was solidified, not to mention before the horrors of the "War to end all wars". He was a small-town, Midwestern boy, but not much of an experienced farmer himself, his family leaving the farm after his father's early death for Cedar Rapids. Wood had a lifelong ambition to become an artist, it seems, and he spent time in Europe, mainly France, studying and refining his techniques. He also ran into a much more tolerant culture in Europe with regard to sexual orientation. Wood's gayness was a carefully kept secret during his lifetime, and after, thanks to his sister. Even today, his studio-museum shakes its head over the elitism of his colleagues at the University of Iowa, who wanted him fired over his "lack of formal study", despite his European studies and time spent at the Minneapolis School of Art and Design and the Chicago Art Institute. It seems more likely that the other rumor, that there were suspicions about his "morality", is the real reason behind the push to have him fired. Is Wood's style attractive to you? Do you find it charming, subtly sophisticated, naively nationalistic? Do you have a favorite painting of his, or a favorite parody of American Gothic? If Wood hadn't died at such a young age, would his work have evolved? In what ways? Would he have remained such an icon of an imaginary America if he had had the opportunity to get old and cynical, like many of us? https://www.crma.org/grant-wood https://glreview.org/article/grant-wood-left-tipoffs-all-over/ https://hyperallergic.com/why-most-people-dont-get-grant-wood/ https://grantwood.uiowa.edu/news/2016/11/time-machine-daughters-revolution-grant-wood-took-masterly-revenge-dar-snub