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 TextLike other Regionalist artists, Wood at times sold copies of his prints through Associated American Artists (AAA), a firm that sought to sell larger-than-usual runs of these prints to middle-class audiences eager to purchase art but unable to afford most artworks. Fertility, one of these AAA prints, features an idyllic bit of Midwestern scenery of the type that helped Wood garner appreciation from both admirers and skeptics of life on the farm. While to many his scenes seemed like un-ironic appreciations of the simplicity and beauty of life in Wood’s native Iowa, to others the uncanny perfection of his nearly circular trees and immaculately ordered, identical corn rows have seemed like a gentle satire of the strait-lacedness and supposed perfection of Midwestern personalities and scenery. The ability of Wood’s work to appeal to both of these segments of the American public is best exemplified by his iconic 1930 painting American Gothic. The Eldon, Iowa house whose “Carpenter Gothic” architectural style is referred to in the painting’s title appears here in the background, its signature second-floor window gently echoed in the shape of the budding corn plants and its style evoked in the shape and vaulting of the barn’s roof, resulting in a scene as pleasant as it is absurd.
