Wood, Grant, 1891–1942, American painter, studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and in Paris. In Munich in 1928 he was decisively influenced by German and Flemish primitive painting. Subsequently in the 1930s he created his "American scene" works in which stern people and stylized landscapes offer rigid, decorative images of the rural Midwest. He taught at the State Univ. of Iowa and was director of WPA art projects in Iowa. His American Gothic (Art Inst., Chicago) and Daughters of Revolution have been many times reproduced; other works include Stone City (Joslyn Art Mus., Omaha, Nebr.) and a series of murals at Iowa State Univ.

Bibliography

See D. Garwood, Artist in Iowa (1944, repr. 1971).

Wood, Grant

(born Feb. 13, 1891, near Anamosa, Iowa, U.S.—died Feb. 12, 1942, Iowa City, Iowa) U.S. painter. He was trained as a craftsman and designer as well as a painter. On a visit to Germany in 1928, he was strongly influenced by the sharp detail of 15th-century German and Flemish paintings, and he soon abandoned his Impressionist manner for the detailed, realistic manner for which he is known. His American Gothic caused a sensation when exhibited in 1930. A telling portrait of the sober, hardworking Midwestern farmer, it has become one of the best-known icons of U.S. art, though it is often misinterpreted: the woman is not the man's wife but rather the unmarried daughter designated to stay on the farm to assist her widowed father.

Wood, Grant (1892–1942) painter; born in Anamosa, Iowa. After working as a farmer, silversmith, and designer, he made four trips to Europe in the 1920s where he was exposed to the late medieval primitive painting style that would later influence his work. He settled back in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, becoming a painter who captured the idiosyncratic aspects of the people and landscape there, thus becoming a founder of the so-called regional movement. His most famous works, such as American Gothic (1930) and Daughters of Revolution (1932), are characterized by a flat, almost abstract surface and ironic subtext. From 1934 on, he taught painting at the University of Iowa.