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Grant Wood’s American Gothic caused a stir in 1930. Wood entered it in a contest sponsored by the The Art Institute of Chicago Art Institue of Chicago and he won a $300 prize for it. It instantly became a smash hit, as pantings go. The subject was a farmer and his wife. Or maybe father/daughter pair--although she looks as old as he does. Was Wood poking fun at rigid midwestern rural life or celebrating that life? The artist eventually reavealed that the models were his thirty-year old sister, Nan, and their sixty-two year old dentist. It has gone on to become the most recognizable American painting, as well as the most parodied. Green Acres, Micky & Minnie, Miss Piggy & Kermit, Marge & Homer Simpson have all been given the "gothic" treatment. |
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