Grant Wood - Plowing 1936
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Plowing 1936
59x74cm colored pencil with charcoal and white opaque paint, squared in charcoal, on paper mounted on Masonite
Philadelphia Museum of Art
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From Philadelphia Museum of Art:
The principal advocate for American Regionalism's focus upon local subject matter, Grant Wood was far from a countrified farmer. He was trained in art, design, and metalwork; studied in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Paris; and traveled in Europe. During the Depression, his idealized landscapes were criticized for portraying a nostalgic pastoral calm at odds with the reality of Iowa's collapsing farm economy. However, Wood's landscape is also modern: the large quiltlike squares of earth and streamlined curves of undulating fields resemble the simplified forms of modern industrial design, and the scale of work shown is a feat of modern machinery. Still, there is breathtaking romance in Wood's vision of a world perfectly formed by a solitary plowman.