American Gothic by Grant Wood: Pitchfork, Window, and American Myth (1930)
A pitchfork stands like a third person between a man and a woman. Behind them, a carpenter-Gothic window pricks the plain Iowa house with borrowed cathedral lace. Grant Wood's American Gothic (1930) looks simple until you notice how little it explains - who they are to each other, whether the faces judge you or the Depression, whether the painting loves the Midwest or needles it. Quick facts Artist: Grant Wood (1891-1942) Date: 1930 Medium: Oil on beaverboard Collection: Art Institute of Chicago Notable fact: Models: Wood's sister Nan and dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby; the house still stands in Eldon, Iowa Grant Wood, American Gothic , 1930. Art Institute of Chicago. A House That Suggested a Painting Wood saw the small frame house with its pointed window and imagined the kind of people who might belong to it. He dressed Midwestern types in severe Sunday clothes and set them flush to the picture plane. Regionalism here is not soft nostalgia; it is crisp edges, rep...