Gallery

Grant Wood American Gothic (1930)

ProMax

American Gothic is the most tightly-wound portrait American Regionalism ever made: a farmer and his daughter standing rigid before a white Carpenter Gothic farmhouse, everything vertical and repeated. This system is built from that restraint — a drab, honest, sun-faded palette painted matte and hard-edged, a central vertical axis held without exception, and plain slab lettering cut like a small-town sign painter's hand. Stand up straight, hold the pitchfork, and let the plain thing be plain.

Learn more about the Grant Wood American Gothic (1930) style

  • OriginMidwestern United States (Iowa; the house in Eldon, Iowa)
  • Period1930 (painted); American Regionalism peak 1930–1943
  • DesignerGrant Wood · Thomas Hart Benton · John Steuart Curry · Nan Wood Graham · Byron McKeeby
  • MovementsAmerican Regionalism · American Scene painting · anti-Modernist realism

Web examples

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Slide examples

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