Print: Fertility
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https://digital.library.illinois.edu/items/a24c2f80-0d92-0135-23f6-0050569601ca-4
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Descriptive Information
| Title | Print: Fertility |
| Description | A print of a black and white stylized view of a farmstead including ripening rows of corn, a large barn with silo and a small farmhouse. Dimensions are 9" x 12". |
| Interpretation | The scene is stylized, with certain elements exaggerated and the relative size of the elements distorted. The exaggerated pattern of the receding rows of corn makes the field seem larger than the space it could actually occupy. The barn is crowded onto the driveway and too close to the house, which is also out of proportion with the rest of the scene. This scene is based on an actual farmhouse the artist saw in Eldon, Iowa; the second story window is the same window he used in his famous painting, American Gothic. Wood was born in Iowa. He worked as a sign painter and interior designer before beginning formal art studies at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. He then taught art at the University of Iowa. Trips to Europe between 1923 and 1929 led him to seek an "American style" of painting, one not dictated by the influences of European art traditions. He, and the other American Regionalists who shared this vision, concentrated on scenes of Midwestern towns and farms as they knew them. The Midwest was considered the most American of the nation's regions. During the difficult, lean years of the Depression, their works provided the public with reassuring views of the perfection and goodness of agrarian life in America. Wood produced 19 lithographic prints for the Association of American Artists between 1937 and 1941. This New York based organization founded in 1934 offered fine prints by mail order for $5 each or $25 for six prints. It provided work to artists who might not otherwise make a living at their art and made affordable original art easily available to the general public. Usually 250 impressions of each print were made. |
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| Author or Creator | Wood, Grant, 1891-1942 |
| Source | Donated to the Lakeview Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur G. Heidrich, Jr. |
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| Spatial Coverage | Iowa |
| Temporal Coverage | 1939 |
| Collection Publisher | Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences |
| Rights | Copyright Not Evaluated |
| Resource Identifier | LVM1985.004 |
| Date Created | 8-8-02 |
| Collection Title | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community) |
| Collection | Teaching with Digital Content (Cultural Heritage Community) |
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Print: Fertility |