While you may not know who Grant Wood was, you know his art. A visit to Grant Wood’s studio in Cedar Rapids Iowa gives you the chance to see the studio where Wood lived from 1924 through 1935 and painted one of the most famous paintings of the 20th century – “American Gothic.”

Grant Wood

Born in rural Anamosa, Iowa in 1891, Grant Wood spent his boyhood working on the family farm. In 1901, Wood’s father died unexpectedly and the family moved to Cedar Rapids. While Wood adjusted to urban life, his art later in life reflected a return to his boyhood in an idealized and stylized vision of rural Iowa. This vision was criticized for both revering and mocking the Midwestern mindset.

In the summer of 1930, Wood and a friend were driving in Southern Iowa and came across the farmhouse, with its peaked Gothic window. You see these driving in the flyover states, ordinary houses with small architectural quirks. Depending upon how you interpret Wood’s attitude toward the Midwest, he was charmed by the window or regarded it as pretension on the part of the owners. Either way, he decided to paint who he imagined would live in the house. His dentist and sister sat for their portraits, and he submitted it to the Art Institute of Chicago, where it won a third prize award and propelled Wood to international fame. (I couldn’t find out what won first and second prize.)

Grant Wood’s Studio

Before painting “American Gothic”, Wood was a popular artist in Cedar Rapids. His decorative arts were in high demand. A local mortician and patron provided him with a studio space above his horse barn. The studio became a hot spot, as Wood threw parties and a local theater group put on plays in the studio. Due to his popularity, guests came knocking on his door at all hours. In response, Wood constructed a door from a casket lid, added a clock face for a window, and set the hands of the clock to indicate if he was in, out on the town, throwing a party, taking a bath or otherwise occupied.

Through the casket door and up the stairs, is the small space where Wood lived with his mother and sister, and where he painted one of the most iconic paintings in American art. The main studio space also served as his living room, a bedroom he shared with his sister and storage for his canvases. The light cascades in, and the docents have an easel with reproductions of some of Wood’s most important canvases set up where, presumably the painter worked.

The compact studio is neatly designed. The fire place is carefully constructed from an upturned metal bushel basket. The radiators are covered with pattern of tulips punched out of metal. The rough walls have exposed beams and alcoves for art and the telephone. There are pull-out cabinets to store canvases, and Wood and his sister slept on beds that pulled out from the wall as well, more like a trundle bed under the eaves than a Murphy. The sunken tub in the bathroom fit into the opening where hay was once pitched down to the horses, and accommodated Wood’s preference for a shower and his mother’s preference for a bath.

The tiny kitchen opens to the main room with cabinet doors that were once covered in overalls. Wood wore overalls constantly, perhaps in an effort to keep clean, as a tribute to the rural workingman, or to communicate that his painting was also labor. The overalls on the cupboards held the silverware and other utensils for the family, extending the tribute or joke.

Wood’s mother had her own room, although it was still fairly open to the rest of the studio, only blocked off by a radiator. Wood’s sister was the model for many of his paintings, including the woman in “American Gothic.” One wonders if it was due to the close quarters of the studio.

Some of Grant Wood’s most productive years were spent working in this studio, and in addition to “American Gothic,” some of his other most important works were painted here, including “Woman with Plants” (1929), “Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” (1931) and “Daughters of the Revolution” (1932).

Our excellent docents from the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art expressed hope the the studio would one day be fully restored. It has been rented out to art students through the years, and isn’t in a fully restored condition. Once that work is complete, it will be even more impressive to walk up the stairs to where the artist worked and lived during the height of his career.