Author: Haskell, Barbara
Title: Grant Wood, American Gothic and Other Fables
Description: New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2018. Hardcover. Hardcover in green cloth with printed color dustjacket with gold title, 271 pp generously illustrated in color. Foreword / Adam D. Weinberg -- Grant Wood: through the past, darkly / Barbara Haskell -- Willow, weep for me / Glenn Adamson -- Moments of discovery: Grant Wood's theatrical paintings / Shirley Reece-Hughes -- Like a book: Grant Wood's literary associations / Eric Banks -- Cryptic corn: Magic realism and the art of Grant Wood / Emily Braun -- Grant Wood goes gay / Richard Meyer -- Plates -- Grant Wood: a chronicle / Barbara Haskell. The social and political climate in which Wood's art flourished bears certain striking similarities to America today, as national identity and the tension between urban and rural areas reemerge as polarizing issues in a country facing the consequences of globalization and the technological revolution. Wood portrayed the tension and alienation of contemporary experience. By fusing meticulously observed reality with fables of childhood, he crafted unsettling images of estrangement and apprehension that pictorially manifest the anxiety of modern life. "This comprehensive study of Grant Wood (1891-1942) is packed with extensive new scholarship and provides fresh insight into the career of one of the key figures of 20th-century American art. Working primarily in the traditional genres of portraiture and landscape, Wood infused his paintings with a palpable tension that is grounded in the profound epistemological and social upheavals of his time. Exploring Wood's oeuvre from a variety of perspectives, this book presents the artist's work in all of its subtle complexity and eschews the idea that Wood can be categorized simply as a Regionalist painter. Generously illustrated, Grant Wood: American Gothic and Other Fables includes several works published here for the first time, as well as new photography of other paintings. The essays in the volume contextualize Wood's work within a much larger art-historical framework than has previously been considered; renowned scholars address topics such as the artist's literary influences, the role of gender identity in his paintings, and the parallels between Wood's work and the contemporaneous European movements of Surrealism, Neue Sachlichkeit, Precisionism, Art Deco design, and the Arts and Crafts movement. Through a careful reconsideration of Wood's career, creative process, technique, iconography, and critical reception, this book reveals for the first time the deep significance and cosmopolitan breadth of Wood's artistic vision."--Publisher's description. VG+/VG+ .

Keywords: American Art ; Grant Wood ; ; American Art


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