Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables

Mar 2–June 10, 2018

Painting of man holding a pitch fork and a woman in front of a house.
Painting of man holding a pitch fork and a woman in front of a house.

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930. Oil on composition board, 30 3⁄4 x 25 3⁄4 in. (78 x 65.3 cm). Art Institute of Chicago; Friends of American Art Collection 1930.934. © Figge Art Museum, successors to the Estate of Nan Wood Graham/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photograph courtesy Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY

Grant Wood's American Gothic—the double portrait of a pitchfork-wielding farmer and a woman commonly presumed to be his wife—is perhaps the most recognizable painting in 20th century American art, an indelible icon of Americana, and certainly Wood's most famous artwork. But Wood's career consists of far more than one single painting. Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables brings together the full range of his art, from his early Arts and Crafts decorative objects and Impressionist oils through his mature paintings, murals, and book illustrations. The exhibition reveals a complex, sophisticated artist whose image as a farmer-painter was as mythical as the fables he depicted in his art. Wood sought pictorially to fashion a world of harmony and prosperity that would answer America's need for reassurance at a time of economic and social upheaval occasioned by the Depression. Yet underneath its bucolic exterior, his art reflects the anxiety of being an artist and a deeply repressed homosexual in the Midwest in the 1930s. By depicting his subconscious anxieties through populist images of rural America, Wood crafted images that speak both to American identity and to the estrangement and isolation of modern life.

This exhibition is organized by Barbara Haskell, Curator, with Sarah Humphreville, Senior Curatorial Assistant.

Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables is sponsored by Bank of America.


Major foundation support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation.

Major support is also provided by the Barbara Haskell American Fellows Legacy Fund.

Significant support is provided by The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston; The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts; and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Generous support is provided by John and Mary Pappajohn and the Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc.

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

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Early Landscapes and Narrative Paintings

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In his early landscapes, Grant Wood recast the farmscape of his childhood into an Arcadian fantasy of undulating, swollen shapes and decorative embellishments whose multiple focal points keep the viewer’s eye in constant motion by giving all parts of the composition equal weight. His landscapes do not depict Midwestern farm life in the 1930s. Instead, they portray his idealized memories of the 1890s farm in Anamosa, Iowa, where he lived as a young boy before moving to Cedar Rapids with his family following the death of his father. His desire was not so much to portray a world that was becoming extinct as to recover a mythical childhood that existed only in his imagination.

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Near Sundown, 1933

Aerial view painting of farm land with shadows descending over trees.
Aerial view painting of farm land with shadows descending over trees.

Grant Wood (1891–1942), Near Sundown, 1933. Oil on composition board, 15 x 26 1⁄2 in. (38.1 x 67.3 cm). Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence; gift of Mr. George Cukor 1959.0070. © Figge Art Museum, successors to the Estate of Nan Wood Graham/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

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Painting of man holding a pitch fork and a woman in front of a house.
Painting of man holding a pitch fork and a woman in front of a house.

Grant Wood, American Gothic, 1930. Oil on composition board, 30 3⁄4 x 25 3⁄4 in. (78 x 65.3 cm). Art Institute of Chicago; Friends of American Art Collection 1930.934. © Figge Art Museum, successors to the Estate of Nan Wood Graham/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photograph courtesy Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY

Hear directly from artists and curators on selected works from the exhibition.

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Exhibition Catalogue

This comprehensive study of Grant Wood provides new insight into the career of one of the key figures of twentieth-century American art. Exploring Wood’s oeuvre from a variety of perspectives, the catalogue presents the artist’s work in all of its subtle complexity and eschews the idea that Wood can be categorized simply as a Regionalist painter. 

The excerpt featured here includes a selection from Barbara Haskell’s overview essay as well as a preview of the plate section and illustrated chronology.

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Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

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In the News

“A new exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art reveals the complexities of the Iowa-born Wood.”
—The Wall Street Journal

"Feels right on time."
—The New Yorker

"Wood was much more than American Gothic."
—artnet

“As this exhibition demonstrates, he is an artist fated to be perpetually rediscovered.”
—The Washington Post

“Wood had altogether weirder, more singular ambitions than any of his modernist counterparts.”
—Artforum

“A fascinating retrospective.”
—WNYC

"This is no regionalist proponent of clean, country living but an artist of a much darker and more sensual vision, one for whom normalcy was delightfully perverse."
—The Art Newspaper

“It will be a surprise for people who think they know Grant Wood.”
—The New York Times

"The most extensive Grant Wood exhibition that's ever been mounted."
—CBS News

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

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Learn more at whitney.org/artport

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