Although everyone recognizes American Gothic, the endlessly parodied image of a pitchfork-wielding farm couple, few know the gothic story of its creator, Grant Wood. In writing Wood's biography, I was intrigued by how this closeted gay man - who survived by adopting a folksy, overall-clad persona - drew inspiration from the women around him. Above all, these included his widowed mother and married sister, both of whom slept alongside Wood for much of his adult life. More Norman Bates than Norman Rockwell, it seems, he painted some of the most arresting female portraits in American art. Here are nine (and a half) of my favorites:
Author of "Grant Wood: A Life" (Knopf: 2010), Tripp Evans teaches art history at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. To read an excerpt from the book, visit www.grantwoodalife.com.
Grant Wood
American Gothic (1930)(01 of09)
When American Gothic was first shown at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1930, visitors assumed it portrayed a married couple. Wood insisted the pair was a father and daughter, yet he was sometimes confused about their relationship himself – and with good reason. The female model for this work, Wood’s beloved “maiden” sister Nan (who had, in fact, been married six years when she posed), had replaced the artist’s mother Hattie. Wearing her mother’s apron and cameo, and accompanied by Wood’s dentist (a stand-in for the painter’s deceased father), Nan plays the roles of mother, sister and daughter all at once. "American Gothic" (1930), Art Institute of Chicago
Woman with Plants (1929)(02 of09)
In this portrait, Wood’s formidable mother Hattie wears the same rickrack apron and cameo seen in American Gothic the following year. One of the first paintings in Wood’s mature style (until the late 1920s, he had painted as an Impressionist), it reveals a new source for his imagery: the regal, Madonna-and-child imagery of the sixteenth century. The fact that Hattie cradles a spiky snake plant in her lap, rather than an infant, says a great deal about her complicated relationship with her son. Compelling Wood to abandon his off-again/on-again life in Paris in 1929, she thereafter slept in a pull-out bed next Wood’s until her death at seventy-seven. For many years Nan squeezed in, too. "Woman with Plants" (1929), Cedar Rapids Museum of Art
Portrait of Nan (1931)(03 of09)
Given the teasing Nan had endured for her portrayal in American Gothic, Wood promised to create this more sympathetic image of her the next year. Here Nan appears in the fashionable, marcelled waves she’d been asked to iron out for American Gothic, along with a striking blouse designed by her brother. In her lap she holds two unusual accessories – a ripe plum and a baby chick – that recall feminine symbols of fertility and nurturing in American folk painting. The arresting quality of her gaze more accurately reflects the intimidating (and occasionally cruel) personality for which she was better known. In the ties to her blouse, Wood creates the shape of two bats. "Portrait of Nan" (1931), Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison (collection of William Benton)
Victorian Survival (1931)(04 of09)
As a child, Wood was fascinated by his family’s tintype albums. In this image he recreates a late-nineteenth-century image of his Aunt Tillie – with a few significant alterations. Whereas Aunt Tillie’s original tintype is less than four inches high, in this painting her figure is projected slightly larger than life-size; her neck is monstrously elongated, and her throat neatly sliced by a black choker. Intended to illustrate the clash between the Victorian and modern worlds (the telephone beside her mirrors the shape of her neck), this unsettling image says far more about Wood’s inability to reconcile these two periods than his aunt’s. "Victorian Survival" (1931), Dubuque Museum of Art, on long-term loan from the Carnegie-Stout Public Library.
Memorial Window (1928-9)(05 of09)
In 1928 Wood received an unusual commission for a stained glass window – at the time, the largest ever created for an American building (it measures 24 feet high). Installed in Cedar Rapids’ Veterans Memorial Building in 1929, it depicts soldiers from six American conflicts below the towering figure of the Republic. Nan, who posed for this figure, wears the mourning veil her mother had worn at her husband’s funeral – an article Wood saved like a holy relic. Fascinated by all things funereal, Wood made the front door to his studio from a nineteenth-century coffin lid. "Memorial Window" (1928-9), Veterans Memorial Building, Cedar Rapids
Daughters of Revolution (1932)(06 of09)
Here Wood takes direct aim at the Daughters of the American Revolution, a group he felt embodied the small-town chauvinism he’d attempted to escape in the 1920s. In 1929, the D.A.R. denounced Wood for having his Memorial Window fabricated in Germany, the United States’ most recent enemy. In this image he highlights their hypocrisy by posing the women against a print of the operatic Washington Crossing the Delaware, a sacred image to the D.A.R. Its creator, the German artist Emanuel Leutze, had painted it in Dusseldorf. "Daughters of Revolution" (1932), Cincinnati Art Museum
Near Sundown (1933)(07 of09)
Wood’s poetic landscapes typically reflect the form of a human body – most often, the muscular contours of a male figure. In this image, however, the painter created a tribute to his ailing mother, whose health had begun to seriously decline in the mid-1930s. In the fading light of this fall landscape, which hung in the studio Wood shared with his mother, the artist reveals a form of pre-emptive grief. Two years later, as Hattie battled her final illness, Wood shocked Cedar Rapids by marrying Sara Maxon – a matronly, gray haired woman many years his senior. "Near Sundown" (1933), Spencer Museum of Art
The Perfectionist (1936-7)(08 of09)
Following Wood’s surprise marriage and subsequent move to Iowa City, Sara’s son and daughter-in-law moved in with the couple. Here, Sara’s daughter-in-law Dorothy poses for an illustrated version of Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street – a commission Wood received in 1936. Although she stands in for the book’s sympathetic character Carol Kennicott, Dorothy displays a detectible note of suspicion – a reflection of new tensions in Wood’s home. By Sara’s later account, Wood’s affection for Dorothy’s handsome, twenty-eight-year-old husband Sherman made everyone in the house uncomfortable. "The Perfectionist" (1936-7), Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Appraisal (1931)(09 of09)
Although two women appear Wood’s 1931 Appraisal, we may only count one and a half. Typically interpreted as a city-meets-country confrontation, this image was also an inside joke about the gallery director Edward Rowan, who served as the unwitting model for the woman at left. The model at right, Mary Lackersteen, was the partner of Wood’s friend Hazel Brown – a choice that further complicates the “appraisal” taking place between the two women. If we’re to better understand Wood’s work, seemingly transparent images like this one – or American Gothic – must be understood within the context of Wood’s deeply-layered private life."Appraisal" (1931), Dubuque Museum of Art, on long-term loan from the Carnegie-Stout Public Library.