Displaying items by tag: american gothic

A rare Grant Wood sketchbook from 1929 is back in Davenport after it went missing from a museum about 50 years ago, the museum said.

The 100-page sketchbook signed by Wood, the painter of "American Gothic," is again in the Figge Art Museum's possession, collections and exhibitions manager Andrew Wallace said Thursday.

The small book of drawings for the 24-foot, stained-glass window in Cedar Rapid's Veterans Memorial Building was likely stolen during an open house in 1966 at what was then the Davenport Museum of Art.

"American Gothic," the famous American Regionalist painting by Grant Wood, is on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum for the first time through Nov. 16, 2014. The masterpiece joins Wood’s "Daughters of Revolution" in the exhibition, "Conversations around American Gothic."

The two celebrated paintings of the 1930s are the focus of an historic loan exchange between the Art Institute of Chicago, the permanent home of "American Gothic," and the Cincinnati Art Museum, which houses "Daughters of Revolution." In turn, "Daughters" will journey to Chicago, Paris and London in the 2016 exhibition, "Freedom and the Brush: American Painting in the 1930s."

Julie Aronson's story of how Grant Wood's iconic "American Gothic" came to be at the Cincinnati Art Museum this fall is a lesson in not censoring yourself while brainstorming.

"This is something I always thought, 'Gee, wouldn't it be amazing?' said the museum's curator of American paintings, sculpture, and drawing. "I thought this was just a pipe dream, that it would never happen."

"American Gothic," at the Art Institute of Chicago since it was first exhibited in 1930. It rarely travels.

It may come as no surprise that when you ask Americans to choose their favorite artwork, Edward Hopper’s iconic “Nighthawks” sits at the top of the list. For the Art Everywhere US initiative (imported from the UK), online voters picked Hopper’s 1942 noir masterpiece and 57 other works from a curated selection of 100 pieces from the collections of five museums — the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, LACMA, the National Gallery of Art, and the Whitney. Starting August 4, the works will adorn as many as 50,000 billboards and signs across America.

The works to go on view range from patriotic picks like Gilbert Stuart’s 1821 portrait of George Washington and Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” to more contemporary choices like photographs from Robert Mapplethorpe and Cindy Sherman. As part of a special presentation at the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, Art Everywhere will present the full list of works.

The Art Institute of Chicago announced that they have acquired Thomas Hart Benton’s (1889-1975) Cotton Pickers (1945), a critical example of American Regionalism, a realist modern art movement that gained popularity during the 1930s. Regionalist artists forsook urban life in favor of creating scenes of everyday rural life in America. Benton was a pioneer of the movement and is considered a pivotal figure in American art.

Cotton Pickers is a rare example of Benton’s large-scale paintings and it is the first oil painting by the artist to enter the museum’s collection. It will bolster the Art Institute’s world-renowned collection of paintings from the period, which includes Grant Wood’s (1891-1942) iconic painting American Gothic (1930) and John Steuart Curry’s (1897-1946) Hogs and Rattlesnakes (1930). The addition of Cotton Pickers helps the Art Institute tell the story of Regionalism more fully. Judith Barter, the Field-McCormick Chair and Curator in the American Art Department, considers the painting one of the museum’s most important acquisitions in the last several decades.

Cotton Pickers will be exhibited alongside American Gothic and Hogs and Rattlesnakes.