On View
Not on viewObject number1977/8.15
Fertility
Artist
Grant Wood
(American, 1891-1942)
Date1939
Mediumlithograph
Dimensionsimage: 9 × 12 in. (22.9 × 30.5 cm)
sheet: 11 5/8 × 16 in. (29.5 × 40.6 cm)
mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
sheet: 11 5/8 × 16 in. (29.5 × 40.6 cm)
mat: 16 × 20 in. (40.6 × 50.8 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Mrs. Cornelia Robinson
Exhibition History"36 Regionalist prints from the KIA," Dennos Museum Center (Sept. 8 - Nov. 24, 1996), Ella Sharp Museum, Jackson, MI (May 17 - July 13, 1997), Midland Center for the Arts (Aug. 2 - Sept. 21, 1997).
"Familiar Surroundings," KIA Long Gallery (Dec. 18, 2010 - Apr. 10, 2011).Label TextIt was only gradually in Wood’s career that his treatment of farm subjects began to take on the symbolic overtones we now associate with his work. Until the mid-1930s he was best known as a satirist. But true to his growing conviction about the organic relationship of the artist to local life, he gradually appropriated farm life material as his own. This commitment rested on Wood’s deep faith in the traditional virtues and ideals of a rural way of life. In Fertility, the close-up view of the well-tended field of corn and neat farm buildings reflects the providence of Nature under the custodial care of the farmer. The swelling form of the barn, which dominates the scene, takes on the character of guardian, a protective presence in the absences of the caretaker of the land.
