In the painting “American Gothic” by Grant Wood, who were the two figures based on?
In 1930, Grant Wood, an American painter with European training, noticed a small white house built in Carpenter Gothic architecture in Eldon, Iowa. Wood decided to paint the house along with “the kind of people I fancied should live in that house.” He recruited his sister Nan to model the woman, dressing her in a colonial print apron mimicking 19th century Americana. The man is modeled on Wood’s dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The three-pronged hay fork is echoed in the stitching of the man’s overalls, the Gothic window of the house and the structure of the man’s face. Each element was painted separately; the models sat separately and never stood in front of the house.
