![]() ![]() Over this outfit he wears a black jacket. He wears denim bib overalls over a white collarless shirt with green vertical stripes, neatly buttoned to the neck and fastened with a stud. He, too, has a very long face, with a high bald domed forehead, brown eyes under bushy dark brows, round spectacles, and a thin, unsmiling mouth. The man, to the right, is taller and looks older. Over her dress she wears a brown sleeveless apron, with a pattern of white dots and circles, and with white zigzag braid trim round the neckline and armholes. She is dressed in a black dress with a white collar, and a coral and white cameo brooch at the neck. This is accentuated by the puckered lines at the corners of her mouth. She has a long, oval face and blue eyes under fine brows that seem to be pulled together into a slight frown. One lock, on the left, has escaped and hangs loose. She has straight fair hair parted in the center and pulled back smoothly over her ears. The woman is perhaps in her thirties or forties, though it’s hard to pinpoint her age. They are both facing forwards with their bodies but the woman, at left, turns her head slightly towards the right side of the canvas, while the man looks directly out at us. The two people are shown from the waist up, and their figures almost fill the canvas. About 2 feet 7 inches high by 2 feet 2 inches wide.Ī woman and a man stand side by side in front of a white wooden house. American Gothic, by American artist Grant Wood. And they found it rather exotic and fun, and so it was quite popular. ![]() It was certainly an American scene, but it wasn’t something that people lived in big cities could relate to very well. People in Chicago loved this picture because it was something so foreign to them. This work reads both like a satire of the American dream…and a celebration of a way of life that was quickly disappearing. This couple would have been sort of left behind in the dust. And particularly in the early 1930s, at the depth of the Depression, young people were leaving the farms. In 1920, this country was predominantly urban, and no longer rural. Ironically, in 1930, this neat, tidy little farm couple was already a dying breed. And she wears her best apron and the family cameo. Over his bib overalls, which mark him as a farmer, he wears a dress shirt and probably his only suit jacket, dressing up for this picture. He is on the right, with his pitchfork, probably headed to the barn, which is also on the right side of the picture. She’s wearing her apron, and on the left side of the painting are her flowerpots and the domestic chores. Grant Wood never said whether this was a husband and wife or a father and daughter. I imagined American Gothic people with their faces stretched out long to go with this American Gothic house. And so he engaged his dentist and his sister to pose for this picture. And he said he wanted to paint the perfect couple that would live in a house like that. And it is a wonderful house-I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Well, he was riding around in the country one day, and he found this wonderful Gothic Revival house. Judith Barter, Field-McCormick Chair and Curator, American Arts, tells the story. ![]() Artist Grant Wood discovered the house in this painting by accident. ![]()
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