Woodn't It Be Lovely…

to find yourself in this voluptuous midwestern landscape?

Grant Wood must have thought so! After several years of study in Europe, Wood returned to his native Iowa to paint canvases that celebrate the Midwest. He applied his exceptional talent for simplification and design to make these plowed fields and tidy farmhouses reflect the order and harmony Wood discovered on his return to the American heartland.

View this work and dozens more in our traveling exhibition Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The show is on view at the Dayton Art Institute through March 24, 2002.

Today there is reason to pay tribute to Wood. He was born on this day in 1892! Wood's photographic portrait (shown below) is part of our Peter A. Juley & Son Collection.

Source: Virginia Mecklenburg. Scenes of American Life: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured top: Grant Wood, 1891–1942, Landscape, 1930, oil on paperboard, 12 5/8 x 14 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Park and Phyllis Rinard.

Pictured bottom: Portrait of Grant Wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Peter A. Juley & Son Collection.