Grant Wood: A Life

by R. Tripp Evans

He claimed to be “the plainest kind of fellow you can find. There isn’t a single thing I’ve done, or experienced,” said Grant Wood, “that’s been even the least bit exciting.”

Wood was one of America’s most famous regionalist painters; to love his work was the equivalent of loving America itself. In his time, he was an “almost mythical figure,” recognized most supremely for his hard-boiled farm scene, American Gothic , a painting that has come to reflect the essence of America’s traditional values—a simple, decent, homespun tribute to our lost agrarian age.

In this major new biography of America’s most acclaimed, and misunderstood, regionalist painter, Grant Wood is revealed to have been anything but plain, or simple . . .

R. Tripp Evans reveals the true complexity of the man and the image Wood so carefully constructed of himself. Grant Wood called himself a farmer-painter but farming held little interest for him. He appeared to be a self-taught painter with his scenes of farmlands, farm workers, and folklore but he was classically trained, a sophisticated artist who had studied the Old Masters and Flemish art as well as impressionism. He lived a bohemian life and painted in Paris and Munich in the 1920s, fleeing what H. L. Mencken referred to as “the booboisie” of small-town America.

We see Wood as an artist haunted and inspired by the images of childhood; by the complex relationship with his father (stern, pious, the “manliest of men”); with his sister and his beloved mother (Wood shared his studio and sleeping quarters with his mother until her death at seventy-seven; he was forty-four).

We see Wood’s homosexuality and how his studied masculinity was a ruse that shaped his work.

Here is Wood’s life and work explored more deeply and insightfully than ever before. Drawing on letters, the artist’s unfinished autobiography, his sister’s writings, and many never-before-seen documents, Evans’s book is a dimensional portrait of a deeply complicated artist who became a “National Symbol.” It is as well a portrait of the American art scene at a time when America’s Calvinistic spirit and provincialism saw Europe as decadent and artists were divided between red-blooded patriotic men and “hothouse aesthetes.”

Thomas Hart Benton said of Grant “When this new America looks back for landmarks to help gauge its forward footsteps, it will find a monument standing up in the midst of the wreckage . . . This monument will be made out of Grant Wood’s works.”

Genres: Biography, Art, Nonfiction, Art History, History, American History, Biography Memoir

402 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

Reviews

[Marvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a frustrating book for me. Purportedly "A Life" of Grant Wood, I felt at the end like I still didn't know the person Grant Wood; the focus was much more on analyses of the paintings, and on a singular and, to my mind, excessive perspective on them. I suppose we should thank the author for bringing Wood's homosexuality (which apparently "everyone"--except, notably, those closest to him--"knew" about) out of the closet, but the singular focus on an aspect of Wood's life that he went to great lengths to hide from the public doesn't really do much, after all, to help us know & understand him. We don't even know when we get done with the book if Wood ever even acted on his homosexuality. As a New York Times reviewer intimates, most biographers of artists emply details from the artist's life to illuminate the artist's work, but this author seems to begin with an analysis of the author's work from his own (that is, the author's) sexual perspective, and then project those readings back onto the author's life. It just gets tiresome after a while. All that said, I should acknowledge part of the failing here may be my own; my ignorance of the visual arts is one of the gaping holes in my own liberal arts education. I should also aknowledge that the book is generally well written and adds complexity to popular simplistic understandings of Wood and his art.

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am enjoying the book despite some of the issues that make this work almost unacceptable as a proper biography of the painter. First let's start with the good aspects of the book: It is well documented and it is written well, even if it is not particularly exciting. There are some illustrative pictures and a few color plates. It follows a strict chronological order and tries hard to document the inner motivations and influences on the artist.

What I find irksome is the lengths to which Mr, Evans pushes his own thesis into every aspect of Grant Wood's life. We are clearly made aware by page 5 that Grant was homosexual. Part of his appeal seems to have been how he embodied core values and was a projection of a conservative America while holding a very different perspective on things and repressing it (unsuccessfully for the informed viewer of course). I agree with the author's thesis that consciously or subconsciously Grant manifested in his art a lot more than what a cursory look would reveal. But, in the book, there is barely an aspect of his life or a decision that Grant made that is not followed by hammering down how this was just another way of Grant to repress his artistic instinct and blend in with societal expectations of masculinity. Grant Wood, for example, used to wear farmer's overalls so he wouldn't stand out too much when painting factory workers. The workers would feel assured he was just not some artsy perverted type. Fine. But the choice of denim curtains and some hooks that looked like mustaches for his studio throws the author into some rambling about how gay people sometimes hypermasculinize their environment to mirror what they want to attract....true, but denim curtains and hooks? May be that was the cheapest thing around! His living arrangements with his sister and mother make sense as means to deviate attention to his bachelorhood but I think the reader gets the idea very early and there is no need to repeat it ad nauseam and dig every possible gay reference out of every picture...and yes, the cow's ear in "The adoration of the Home" was funny but I believe unintended. Pictures of manly bare chested men abound in murals all over the world, not just in Grant's murals. And to compare Aunt Millie's choker with a cock-ring, well, we are in the realm of really "pushing it". Even pieces like "Sultry Night" were a male figure appears stark naked and with no particular embellishment are hardly as homoerotic as the author tries to argue.

The book starts with Grant's childhood in Iowa in a farmer's family and environment, a place that lived by what we might consider as core American values of hard work and moderation. It delves a bit in the artist's family dynamics, the aloof strict father that epitomized everything a farmer was supposed to be: spartan and respectable; the sons that followed in dad's steps and the ones that didn't; Hattie, the artists' mom who encouraged young Grant's tendencies but was relegated to her role; Nan, his sister and model, a woman we learn to dislike quite quickly in the book, etc...We follow Grant Wood to his studies of art in France and Germany and the building of his studio in Cedar Rapids and his school in Stone City. The author explains at length the contrast between the "bohemian" and bearded artsiness ofthe European capitals where Grant got his education and the much more conforming atmosphere in Iowa. Grant became the "american painter" after his success with "American Gothic" in Chicago and felt he had to assume a certain acceptability , a wholesome and unaffected image to keep his throne. Grant was married at some point to an actress called Sara, a marriage that ended badly as Grant kept devoting himself with lanky young men in unrequited relationships, some beneficial and some destructive (and expensive). His marriage was a complex affair of platonic attraction and character mismatching but it suited Grant as he tried to live up to his image of a healthy American as preached by the regionalist credo of American Art. This school of art was represented mostly by two other artists: Benton and Curry.

Most artist biographers spend a lot of time critiquing the art's symbolism as a language. This is not news. Many artists would have loved that attention, Salvador Dali or Mark Ryden come to mind. But the fact is that the symbolic nature of art and its psychological roots are something artists live with. It is an important aspect but secondary to becoming proficient and getting exhibited, creating what they intend and hoping their particular way of seeing things will find a responsive public. Many artists biographers seem to ignore the more "mundane" aspects of craft and finance. This book is no exception. There is some mention of the transition to wood panels from boards, a few notes on financial notes, etc but not much. Most of the text squeezes every last meaning possible in Grant Woods paintings where the author mostly sees buttocks, throbbing penises and erotic symbols. Is this Grant or is it the writer that we are looking at?

The final result is the the book is longer than it need to be and we get to know the author quite well while leaving Grant Wood a bit of a secondary character. How were his finances? Who did he study at the Julian Academy in Paris? Why was he so influenced by German Art? What paints did he use? What were his techniques? The fact that the author quotes someone saying that lithographs require store "carving" without explaining the proper use of stones in litography shows a certain disregard for anything beyond the main thesis. How did he pay for his trips to Europe? the book barely touches on those subjects and leaves me a slightly dissatisfied reader.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I knew the work of Grant Wood, but Tripp Evans gave me a whole new way to look at it. From the detail in American Gothic (noting the round shape of the pitchfork is replicated in the man’s overalls and somewhat in the window) to the personal story behind the George Washington fable. I had not given any thought to Wood’s personal life, other than knowing of his studio in Cedar Rapids and his troubled stint at UI. Evans opened my eyes to what was hiding in sight: Wood’s sexual orientation.

This book is not a general biography. Its main theme is Wood’s homosexuality and how it affected his life and his work. Evans shows the daily burden and danger of being gay in Wood's lifetime. He shows how among friends it was an open secret and how the secret was kept by Sister Nan (most likely denial) and wife, Sara (discretion).

I was unaware of his wife, Sara Sherman, nor of the nastiness of Thomas Hart Benton. Also surprising, but lighter fare, are Wood’s ability to rehab structures into home-studios, his organizing the Stone City Art Colony and the extent of his nude paintings.

The art critique seems at times to reach. To me, the only thing the Last Supper and Dinner for Threshers have in common is a long table and I’m not sure Stone City is erotic, but so much else is informative and added to my appreciation of Wood.

The book is well illustrated. There are color plates of the important works and each is annotated. There are many b/w photos of works, houses/studios and important people in his life. These are all covered in the text. The text is well documented and the writing is clear.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evans is overly eager to divine psychosexual meanings in nearly every aspect of Wood's paintings - it must be said, against Wood's own wishes. It does seem evident that Wood was a closeted gay man - in society at large, if not among his friends and closest associates - in an era when homosexuality made most people deeply squeamish or profoundly disgusted, when it was scorned even in Wood's small corner of the American art scene (Regionalism), and Wood had grown up with a stern Quaker father who thought artistic endeavor unmanly and didn't allow fairy tales or fiction in the house because they weren't "the truth." After decades of committed bachelorhood (most of them living in a small studio with his sister and elderly mother) he suddenly made a platonic marriage to a woman that lasted three years before he kicked her out.

There may be an interesting person hidden here, but Evans hasn't exactly dug that person out. I would have liked to have gotten more of Wood's thoughts and ideas about art. Not just the deep ones, but the simpler ones - how did he paint - what was his process? How did he arrive at the very mannered style he is known for in his landscapes? (After all, he started out painting in an impressionistic style.) How did he plan a composition? What was he trying to accomplish? There are scant clues in Evans' text; we're told that Wood graduated to a time-consuming painting style where he smoothed a work's glazed surface with a razor blade; that he sometimes created clay models before painting his landscapes; that he would have liked to change styles from the deeply mannered landscapes he painted, but that he couldn't seem to; that in Parson Weems' Fable "I flopped the tree every conceivable way, unsuccessfully. Then, as a last resort, I tried a drooping effect, and considered it successful." I would have liked more of that kind of explanation.

Instead, Evans probes every corner of Wood's canvases (or masonite boards) for clues to his subliminal homosexual desires. Penises and buttocks are everywhere. Fingers, necks, ears of corn, cows' ears are phalluses. Little corn sprouts are ejaculations. Curvy fields, hillocks, and cleft bushes are buttocks. Barn doors and gaping barn windows are anal openings. In Portrait of Nan, (Wood's sister), Evans sees labia in the curtain folds and the red-walled background becomes a vagina. In the choker being worn on the elongated neck of Wood's elderly aunt in Victorian Survival, Evans sees tumescence and a cock ring. I'm not saying Evans is completely wrong here: after all, Wood did paint nude men, actual buttocks and penises. It was a clear interest he had. But Wood himself had been upset when critics had misread things into the portrait of his sister Nan "that were not there" (a Menckenish mocking of midwestern bigotry and provincial types), so one can only imagine what he would have thought of Evans's interpretations. "Although Wood may have disguised the sexual nature of his landscapes, even to a certain degree from himself," Evans can see them.

In Fall Plowing, Evans sees not only anal penetration, with the plow, but above it, he imagines Wood's dead father's flayed back muscles:


Fall Plowing, 1931

In Spring Turning Evans sees a man's backside, with the triangular plane at the top (left), the square dungaree pockets on the buttcheeks, and the anal opening at the bottom right where the little stream begins:


Spring Turning, 1936

Wood painted his aunt Matilda with a strangely elongated neck - and "a tumescence that can be maintained only by a choking cock ring," writes Evans, who also weirdly believes that the telephone next to her "has been forced down her throat - leading it to temporarily assume, like the body of a snake, the shape of the sitter's last meal."


Victorian Survival, 1931

In Appraisal the country woman on the left is modeled on a male friend of Wood's (it was some kind of in-joke). Evans sees her pointed finger at bottom as the phallus of the city woman on the right. (He fails to notice the buttocks in the woman's double chin - but now that I'm attuned to seeing buttocks everywhere...) Wood was dissatisfied with the bottom of the original painting and cut it off, but Evans hastens to inform that "the lower portions of the women's coats originally lent both garments a distinctly vaginal appearance. This subliminal element was visible in the city woman's paired, fur-lined sleeve ends and in the slackened, woolen opening of the country woman's sweater."


Appraisal, 1931

Parson Weems' Fable may be my favorite of his paintings. I find it almost irresistible, with its Gilbert Stuart head of adult Washington puckishly planted on a small boy standing as graceful as a tiny ballet dancer in sky blue tights. In addition to all the expected hand/finger/penis/hatchet imagery, Evans also finds in the background "a coded scene of sexual union" between the slave mother and son picking cherries (ladder = phallus). He anticipates our eyerolling, our "alarm and disbelief" evinced by his psychosexual analyses but says that this "only highlights our conscious resistance to the psyche's raw and anarchic operations." "The potential yield in the case of Wood's work....is simply too valuable to leave these images unmined."


Parson Weems' Fable, 1939



"Grant Wood, a mild and timid homosexual, painted most of his scenes of midwestern life in his Connecticut studio, and could only with difficulty be persuaded to revisit the acreage of his birth," wrote Robert Hughes curiously in a 1989 review of Thomas Hart Benton for Time. I could find no evidence in this biography that Wood lived in Connecticut or had a studio there. Apart from a few trips to Europe, his whole adult life seemed to have been spent in Iowa or Minnesota.

[Pd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book completely opened my eyes to Grant Wood. My husband and I (he's my husband on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, my Domestic Partner back home in Chicago) were in Cedar Rapids for a wedding and decided to tuck into Grant Wood's studio for a quick look. Halfway through the tour, learning that Wood was a self-styled interior decorator who lived with his mother and made little gift flowers for his friends out of junk he found in the alley, I whispered to my husband, "Grant Wood was queer!" An obvious fact never mentioned on the studio tour. On our return home, a Google search turned up this book which is a candid look at Wood's entire life, including his homosexuality. But after reading the book, I still don't feel like I really know the man. I'd love to see someone make a movie of his life, the cosmopolitan artist trained in French Impressionism hiding out at the University of Iowa playing a role of a farmboy in dungarees, athletic boys getting special treatment and disappearing into his apartment, a jealous faculty intent on destroying him, death the night before his 52nd birthday just as he is being outed. It has the makings of a fabulous story, but this is more an art history book.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much of a focus on analyzing his works. I would have prefered more about him.. I actually found the Epilogue to be one of the best parts.

[Karla Huebner]

I'm always surprised by the number of art books our local library discards--the extra copies of popular novels, no, but art books? The said art books generally go straight into our departmental collection, although it would be nice if we could get our students to actually use them. This one, however, I read before donating, and I might keep it. I teach Grant Wood's work in brief in several courses and have assigned readings by Wanda Corn and Matthew Baigell, plus have been meaning to read a friend's dissertation that is largely on Wood. This biography offers a nice balance of biographical context and analysis of the work, which will definitely enrich my teaching.

A fair number of readers here have reacted less positively to the book. Does the author spend a lot of time dealing with Wood's closeted sexuality? Well, yes, but it's been left out in the past and I'd agree with the author that it is key to much in the work. I suspect that many people today cannot really imagine what it must have been like to have been a closeted but famous artist in Iowa during the first part of the 20th century. I think the author gives us some sense of how difficult it must have been. As for the psychoanalytic readings of the works, okay, at times I can't really go that far, but for the most part I think they hold up. They're certainly more straightforward and believable than the psychoanalytic readings I've seen some art historians provide. In any case, psychoanalytic readings of artworks should be seen as hypotheses. They're not necessarily provable, but they're not necessarily stupid either. Finally, as to the criticism that the book leaves out questions of technique, materials, and economics. Yes, because while those are interesting and important topics, no book on an artist is likely to cover every aspect of the life and work, and every art historian has his or her own preferred angles of approach. Technique and materials would be a great topic for an exhibition catalog essay, but perhaps not as compelling in a biography published by a trade press. As for Wood's financial situation, that wasn't exactly ignored in this book even if we didn't learn how he financed his early travels.

I can see where this, a biography written by an art historian and published by a trade rather than a university press, is going to irk various readers for various reasons, but I think it's a pretty good effort all the same. (And now back to work on the illustration list for my own book on a queer artist, which will probably irk fewer readers when it finally appears...)

[Mary Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

In brief....this book wasn't!
As an Iowan, I knew a lot of Grant Wood's paintings and the conflicting opinions of whether Iowans should be flattered or offended. However, I was only vaguely aware of Grant Wood's back ground before reading this. One big surprise to me was the "We Three" years of his life when he lived in close confines with his mother and sister. I found this part of the book interesting. Another thing I learned about was Grant's unexpected marriage to the Sarah Sherman Maxon. They appeared to be mirror images of each other's backgrounds and sexual confusions.
I also knew the rumors of his being homosexual with conflicting theories of whether he was closeted or openly active. This seems to be author R. Tripp Evans main interest in Grant Wood. In fact Evans describes in great details all the homosexual symbols in all of Grant Woods paintings. My advise to the author is a famous quote from Freud...."Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
I

[Trent · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating biographically. The descriptions/analyses of the paintings were a bit too Freudian for my taste; I don't believe that a painter who had issues with a parent is necessarily putting symbols of that parent (or the parent-child relationship) into his/her paintings.

[Bob H · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a recent and candid biography of the iconic (American Gothic) artist, and his art. Indeed, this book seeks to analyze (in detail) his art, and examine it in light of the artist's psychology, notably his upbringing in a remote farm by a stern and aloof father. We learn of his closeted homosexuality, which perhaps affected his art; we're told repeatedly that the times frowned on art and artsy interests in men, as well as the bohemian society in Europe in which he traveled and studied as a young man. We learn how Wood would typify and pioneer the American Regionalism school of early- to mid-20th Century American art, and encourage other artists of the school, notably John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton (the latter a loud-mouthed homophobe). We learn of Wood's success in the American art world and his quietly disappointed life, notably a disastrous marriage. In all, it's a deeper look at a major American artist, although with a biographer's psychological lens that may be a bit speculative.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a delightful surprise! I am neither artist nor historian, and yet I found this account of this talented, troubled and trapped American artist to be fascinating. I loved Dr. Evans' intelligent and fluid writing style, his in-depth reporting of the artist's life and circumstances, and the eye-opening analyses of his art. On a logistic level, I appreciated the placement of the images under discussion that allowed for easy, repeated reference and the beautiful color plates that brought the most important works alive. More importantly, I appreciated the story of an artist trapped between who he was and the culture in which he lived. The understanding of the cultural trends of the time and the acceptable bigotry, (if you'll forgive me) paints a picture of someone forced - especially as his fame grew - to hide who he was, in particular, his homosexuality. The story of Grant Wood demonstrates how a culture can contort a celebrity into whatever it wants him to be (patriot! masculine! stoic!). The fact that during his life and for decades after his death, the story of Grant Wood's homosexuality has not been addressed and to this day is denied, is a reflection of our own deep discomfort with revealing our authenticity for fear of rejection. And yet, as the author takes us through the symbolics of Wood's paintings, we see how the expression of the true self cannot be hidden. Dr. Evans' detailed and fascinating readings of Wood's work were insightful, surprising and sometimes incredible (old lady's necklace as cock ring? really?) looks into the deeper workings of the artist's psyche. And yet, the author addresses my concern by admitting that some interpretations "elicit, no doubt, both alarm and disbelief." He goes on to say in reference to his reading of Parson Weems' Fable:
Surely the interpretation goes too far -- destroying the innocence of the artist's intentions,
and perverting the blameless devotion of a loving son. In defending this reading, however -- and
indeed, those that precede it in this book -- I would argue that such a reaction only highlights
our conscious resistance to the psyche's raw and anarchic operations. My readings attempt to
record what I perceive in Wood's mind's eye -- a process fraught, certainly, with great difficulty.
Not only will we never know the full extent of the artist's unconscious motivations, but as
author and reader we inevitably bring our own psychological histories and perspectives to these
images. The potential yield in the case of Wood's work, however, is simply too valuable to leave
these images unmined. Our tools may be coarse or impaired, but the work can and should be done.
(pp 277-278)

I am neither artist nor historian, and this book underscored the power of art to help us understand the person who created it, the culture in which it was born and in fact, ourselves. For who of us has never hidden a part of us for fear of rejection only to have it emerge unbidden?

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gay scholar brings Wood out of the closet. Whether Wood would have liked that isn't at all clear. Fellow regionalists (if that's the term) Curry and Benton make frequent appearances. This will ruffle some feathers.

[Shayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too much focus on Grant Wood's sexual orientation.

[Jonathan Frederick Walz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned some things...but to say that the tone is pedantic is an understatement.

[G. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spun as a biography, this was more art analysis with the author seeing homoerotic imagery in every hill and silo.

[Scott Siegling · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good research but horribly written. When R. Tripp Evans starts psychologizing it's time to throw the book across the room.

[William Collen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of those biographies filled with statements such as "He must have thought . . . " "Surely this would have reminded him of . . . " "Undoubtedly he . . . " — in other words, lots of unfounded conjecture. Besides, Evans rather obviously has an agenda of interpreting all of Wood's life through his repressed homosexuality. The theme of unmet desire is indeed evident in works such as Arnold Comes of Age and Spotted Man but Evans interprets Stone City to be about anal sex; Spring Plowing, as an oedipal comment on Wood's relationship to his father; Portrait of Nan, a coded description of Grant's sexuality; and on and on. Every pair of hills with a valley between them becomes an upturned buttocks; every cylindrical object (even his Aunt Peet's neck in Victorian Survival) becomes a phallus. Rather grating. American Gothic is, in Evans' view, a retelling of the Demeter / Persephone mythos with allusions to Wood's uncomfortable family dynamics. At least Evans admits his interpretations are unconventional; towards the end he gives a sort-of apology for himself which really is a defense of his readings (I'd quote it but I don't have the book with me right now) and which is quite damning from a historian's point of view. Evans barely touches on Wood's work as an illustrator of novels or an interior decorator (the latter is only mentioned in the context of Wood's own places of residence). And the regionalist movement as a whole is downplayed in favor of discussions of Wood's complicated and fraught relationships with Curry, Benton, and Wood's own students. In short, this one can be skipped in favor of Wanda Corn's 1983 exhibition catalog and James Dennis' excellent books, especially Renegade Regionalists, which does a much better job of putting the regionalist movement, and Wood's career, in proper historical perspective.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A look into the life of Grant Wood, the artist behind American Gothic, arguably the most well known painting ever made by an American artist. He died too soon in his early fifties and throughout his life Wood remained an enigma. He rarely explained his paintings and so much of his life is difficult if not impossible to uncover. Wood was almost certainly a closeted gay man who may or may not have acted on his desires, living at a time when being gay in Mid West America would have been ruinous to his career. I did get the feeling that by the end of this book I still knew little about the real Grant Wood though I very much enjoyed what I did learn. Some of the author's conclusions seemed to me, a layman, a bit of a stretch, as he contends that almost all of Wood's paintings contain coded and sometimes not so coded references to his homosexuality and/or his rather unusual family life. I tend to think that sometimes a painting of an ear of corn is just a painting of an ear of corn and not everything cylindrical is meant to be phallic, but I'll leave it up to those more expert than I to argue that one out. Just be warned, a sizeable amount of this book is a discussion of sexual references in Wood's paintings. In the end though I found it a very readable, well illustrated story of a fascinating man, his paintings and his life.

[David Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Regionalism is not quite the artistic movement I thought it was, more an incidental grouping of similar artists (Wood, Benton, Curry) named by Time magazine. Still, these are among my favorite artists. Wood's depictions of American rural life evoke a slice of American culture that still warms my heart. The author suggests Wood's paintings also portray a great deal more stemming from his repressed sexuality and relatively confined social circles. Whatever the deeper analysis, the regionalists were the last gasp of realism before the near complete takeover of abstraction.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first foray into the world of Grant Wood. Having been previously acquainted with only his most popular paintings, I thoroughly enjoyed the analysis of his work which brought to light for me the range and depth of his oeuvre. It is fascinating to wonder where his art would have ventured had he not died at 50. I came away feeling less enlightened as to his personality, but that is an expected obstacle when writing about an intensely private person. A solid, well research book for anyone wanting to know more about this intriguing artist.

[Laurelle Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this artist and a fascinating life.

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

Regrettably short on biography is this "a life." It is, rather, a reclamation of Wood for Team LGBT. To that end author Evans, an art history prof, offers a provocative exegesis of Wood's surprisingly small oeuvre. Despite being a more-than-willing audience for this kind of Freudian-esque critique I nearly parted company with Evans when I encountered this from his take on Wood's picture Victorian Survival:

Like American Gothic's menacing farmer, the figure in Victorian Survival is a living corpse--a reassemble one, in fact--endowed with the same potential to punish. Ironically, it is the figure's inescapably phallic character that allows Wood to defuse the threat they pose. Whereas the farmer's steely virility is undercut by the wrinkly softness of his overalls and deflated cheeks, the sitter in Victorian Survival embodies a tumescence that can be maintained only by a choking cock ring.

It's rather like that all the way through. The second half the biography picks up the pace quite a bit when more (or easier to ascertain) biographical information is available to Evans. Toward the end he says this which, for me, went a long way in forgiving his excesses:

My readings attempt to record what I perceive in Wood's tomind's eye--a process fraught, certainly, with great difficulty. Not only will we never know the full extent of the artist's unconscious motivations, but as author and reader we inevitably bring our own psychological histories and perspectives to these images. The potential yield in the case of Wood's work, however, is simply too valuable to leave these images unmined. Our tools may be coarse or impaired, but the work can and should be done.

[Tommy Bat-Blog Brookshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've always loved the paintings created by this American Artist but I have never really known that much abut him as a person. So, when I came across this book I knew I HAD to read it. Overall I thought the Author did a great job on it, the high level of his fine research is insane! Plus, I have to give kudos to the book cover's Designer for NOT putting "American Gothic" on the cover, ha! ( You know, the famous painting with the woman & the old man holding a pitchfork, ha! )


The book gently flows between talking about Grant Wood, the Person, and his actual artwork( mostly paintings & some sketches ). It's not entirely filled with all of his art, which would have made it better, but there is plenty of eye-candy to enjoy. Plus, the Author does give a lot of insight to the hidden meanings in many works so it's a nice learning experience.

My only complaint about this book is the writer's obsession with talking about Grant Wood's homosexuality. Now, I don't have ANY problems with the whole Gay issue, that's cool. In fact, I was really surprised to learn this. It's just that in parts of the book he really seems to totally dwell on it a little too much.

But other than that, it's a great read & very informative. If you love Art History I think you'll learn a few things & will also develop a better ( deeper ) appreciation for Wood's artwork.

[Jonathan Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1930, artist Grant Wood achieved sudden national fame with “American Gothic,’’ his iconic painting of a pitchfork-wielding farmer and a stern, black-clad woman posed before a Victorian farmhouse. Hailed by Depression-era newspapers as a symbol of American values and by avant-garde intellectuals as a satire of small-town provincialism, “American Gothic’’ has since become one of the most reproduced and parodied artworks in history — spoofed in political posters for the legalization of marijuana and cartoons about Bill Clinton’s marital woes. But the true motivations behind this picture remain as difficult to characterize as the soft-spoken and deeply-closeted gay man who painted it...

The rest of my review is available online here:

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articl...

[Nan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't read a lot of art history or biographies, so perhaps I'm not the intended audience for this book. I spent a number of years living in Iowa near Grant Wood's old stomping ground and saw some absolutely fantastic exhibits of his work (and Marvin Cone's) at various times in Cedar Rapids. I was hoping this book would flesh out the story of the man behind the work. It read more like academic chronological recounting of his history. I felt like too much time was spent describing inconsistencies in interviews with Wood (e.g., Did he paint this before or after he returned from Munich???). I gave up half way through because I felt like I wasn't getting to know the guy any better. I did find the intersection between the cultural ideals of masculinity of the time and his homosexuality interesting.

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In general, critics were pleased to see a new book about Grant Wood, who, despite the popular American Gothic, is often neglected in histories of American or 20th-century art. They agreed that Evans adds to the scholarship on the man and his work. Several critics indicated that that they felt Evans focused too exclusively on Wood's supposed homosexuality in his interpretation of the artist's life and paintings. On the other hand, many critics also forgave this excess by way of noting that this is the first book to truly consider Wood's sexual orientation as a factor in his life and art. This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Ivan Benedict · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting biography.
The author has searched lots of resources, and
since I am related to the woman who married Wood,
I was especially interested in the material the
author found in her unpublished autobiography.
I learned quite a bit about my relative.
I didn't know that Wood was gay; but the author
(gay himself) makes a good case for it, and finds
evidence even in the Wood's paintings. I will
never again look at "Stone City" in the same way
I have before.
I also had no idea how popular Wood was during his
lifetime.
The only material I wasn't fond of was the amount of
writing about Thomas Hart Benton.
But the book was thorough and well-written.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

such potent messages here about how artists use the canvas to emote. sheer delight reading the meaning behind the paintings that grant wood painted thruout his closeted life in the depression era. lush undulating portraits of the farm and silo and corn fields and the hearty souls who worked the land and grant wood's relationship with his mother and sister that compelled him to stay in the heartland where his life was repressed.....but then again maybe he would of not been able to paint if he had not been conflicted......

[Jennifer]

I adore Grant Wood. I became intrigued by this book when it was mentioned in the Des Moines Register Opinion page a few weeks ago. I'm suspicious of the idea that Wood's sexuality actually affected his art any more or less than any other artist's sexuality...I'm more interested in his biography. This book promises to reveal insight that Wood himself worked so hard to hide. I imagine some of that had to translate into his work.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book sets out to straighten out years of misconceptions about Grant Wood's art and life. His sister, friends and former biographers cleaned him up ignoring his drinking, depressions and homosexuality. Consequently they turned him and his art into cartoons. Only recently have they been recognized as dreamscape masterpieces. This book give the "why" of it.