Grant Wood's Dentist Posed

American Gothic

Grant Wood’s American Gothic caused a stir in 1930 when it was exhibited for the first time at The Art Institute of Chicago and awarded a prize of 300 dollars. Newspapers across the country carried the story, and the painting of a farm couple posed before a white house brought the artist instant fame. The Iowa native, then in his late 30s, was enchanted by a cottage he had seen in the small southern Iowa town of Eldon. Its Gothic Revival style, indicated by the upper window designed to resemble a medieval pointed arch, inspired the painting’s title. He asked his dentist and his sister Nan to pose as a farmer and his unmarried daughter. The highly detailed style and rigid frontal arrangement of the figures were inspired by Northern Renaissance art, which the artist studied during three trips to Europe. After returning to Iowa, he became increasingly appreciative of the traditions of the Midwest, which he also celebrated in works such as this.

American Gothic remains one of the most famous paintings in the history of American art. It is a primary example of Regionalism, a movement that aggressively opposed European abstract art, preferring depictions of rural American subjects rendered in a representaional style. The painting has become part of American popular culture, and the couple has been the subject of endless parodies Some believe that Wood used this painting to satirize the narrow-mindedness and repression that has been said to characterize Midwestern culture, an accusation he denied. The painting may also be read as a glorification of the moral virtue of rural America or even as an ambiguous mixture of praise and satire. 
From The Art Institute of Chicago

fuckyeah-arthistory:

The sitters for Grant Wood’s American Gothic pictured in front of the artwork in 1942. On the left, Wood’s sister, Nan Wood Graham; on the right, Wood’s dentist, Dr. Bryon McKeeby.

(Source: cavetocanvas)

 

Sister Nan was so upset that she had been portrayed as the wife of a man twice her age that she demanded her brother begin telling everyone the painting was of a man and his daughter, a myth that persists to this day.

This is the house that appears in the painting.
It stands in Eldon, Iowa, where it was built by Charles and Catharine Dibble in 1881 as a home for them and their 8 children. It contains just 504 square feet. The Dibbles lost the house in 1897 when they were unable to pay the taxes. The family relocated to Portland where we can only hope things turned out better.

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