Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow...

But let's hope we avoid this much snow!

In the last several years of his life, artist Grant Wood, a leading exponent of American Scene painting, produced a series of lithographs that conveyed his pride in the rich farm land of Iowa and his idealized vision of agrarian life.

The artist avoided depicting towns or villages in these works, concentrating instead on rolling countryside and a landscape under loving cultivation. The season of the year in these pictures tends to be spring, summer, or fall. However, this scene depicts a deep Iowa snowfall, gingerly clinging atop the corn shocks.

Pictured: Grant Wood, 1891–1942, January, 1938, lithograph on paper, 12 1/8 x 16 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Park and Phyllis Rinard in honor of Nan Wood Graham.