Free Republic

When Grant Wood, who produced the most recognisable painting in American art, first passed a humble Iowa cottage with an oversized Gothic window, he burst out laughing at the pretension. Now, on the 75th anniversary of American Gothic, it is hard not to lament the decline of the cottage and countless other Victorian buildings rotting across the Mid-West. The house now stands empty The house has been empty for two years and the white paint is blistered and peeling off the prettily-turned wooden balusters of the porch. The tiles are buckling on the steep roof. The cottage, built in 1881...

If the Mona Lisa is the world’s most instantly recognizable piece of art, then what’s the best-known piece of art to come from America? That’s easy: It’s the painting that won third place in the Art Institute of Chicago’s 43rd annual exhibition on American paintings and sculpture, in 1930. You know the one. You’ve seen it hundreds of times before: American Gothic, by Grant Wood. This fall marks the 75th anniversary of the painting’s bronze-medal performance, and Harvard scholar Steven Biel marks the occasion with a short book on its curious history, American Gothic: A Life of America’s Most Famous...

Gothic anniversary 75-year-old masterpiece continues to turn heads By Todd Dvorak - Associated Press Writer Thursday, August 11, 2005   Eldon, Iowa -- Just before the photographer counts three, John Bruce and his wife, Jennifer, glance over their shoulders, a final check on their alignment with the white farmhouse behind them and its unmistakable second-story window. They stand side by side, straight-backed and stiff-shouldered. Neither offers the slightest crease of a smile -- until the camera's shutter has snapped. Like many other art and pop culture buffs who venture to this far-flung Iowa town each year, the Bruces wanted...