January

Grant WoodWW-1938-029482

1938·Charcoal, smudging and erasure, and white Conté crayon on tan paperboard·52 × 68 cm (20 1/2 × 26 13/16 in.)

<p>This impressive drawing relates to a series of lithographs—which Wood planned but never completed—representing all the seasons and months of the year. He made finished drawings depicting four of the months, and this is the only subject of which he also made a painting. Contrary to the usual evolution of a composition, he made the lithograph first, in 1937, then this drawing, in 1938, and finally the painting, in 1940.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1938
Medium: Charcoal, smudging and erasure, and white Conté crayon on tan paperboard
Dimensions: 52 × 68 cm (20 1/2 × 26 13/16 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Grant Wood

Artist

Grant Wood

Painting

Grant Wood was an American painter who developed a distinctive representational style depicting rural Midwestern life and landscape. Working primarily in oil on beaverboard and canvas during the 1920s and 1930s, he created meticulously detailed scenes of farmland, small towns, and their inhabitants rendered with a formal precision that bordered on the decorative. His most celebrated work, American Gothic, became an iconic image of American regionalism. Wood's practice emerged from his engagement with European modernism, particularly German Neue Sachlichkeit, which he synthesized with a deeply specific observation of Iowa's agricultural terrain and social fabric.

Minneapolis–Saint Paul

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