Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables
Mar 2–June 10, 2018
Prints, Illustrations, and Commercial Projects
5
Grant Wood’s experience as a decorative artist led him to view fine and applied art as being equal. In addition to designing textiles, an armchair and accompanying ottoman, and a Steuben glass vase, he illustrated two books and made cover images for eight others. The first book he illustrated was the 1935 children’s book Farm on the Hill, written by Madeline Darrough Horn. In 1936, he illustrated a deluxe publication of Sinclair Lewis’s novel Main Street (1920). As he often did with his paintings, he asked friends to pose for the illustrations, dressing them in costume for the occasion.
Wood’s desire to reach a broad audience with his art likewise led him to make lithographs through the Associated American Artists (AAA), which published and sold prints by major American artists in department stores and by direct mail for five dollars apiece. Making affordable art appealed to Wood, who completed eighteen lithographs for the AAA between 1937 and 1941.
Vase with Woman Tending a Goose and Chickens, 1939
Grant Wood (1891–1942), Vase with Woman Tending a Goose and Chickens, 1939. Glass, 14 x 8 5⁄16 in. (35.5 x 21.1 cm). The Corning Museum of Glass, New York; gift of Harry W. and Mary M. Anderson in memory of Carl G. and Borghild M. Anderson and Paul E. and Louise Wheeler 89.4.33. © Figge Art Museum, successors to the Estate of Nan Wood Graham/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Wood was one of twenty-seven American and European artists that Steuben commissioned to create designs to be etched onto crystal vases and bowls that would be sold through its showroom. Wood adapted his design from the figure of the farmer’s wife from his 1932 Fruits of Iowa murals.