Hiding in Plain Sight - James Maroney Inc.

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“Irony prompts some laughter and a nod of comprehension; for irony involves absurdities that cease to be absurd when fully understood.” Reinhold Niebuhr 3 Frontispiece illustration: Corn Cob Chandelier, 1925-26 Designed by Grant Wood, fabricated by George Keeler Installed in the “Iowa Corn Room,” Hotel Montrose Dining Room, Cedar Rapids Formed brass sheet, cast and machined iron and copper wiring, 94 x 32 x 34 inches (Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, Gift of John B. Turner) 3 Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, (New York: Charles Scribner’s sons, 1952) 4
Introduction I n Return from Bohemia, 1935, Grant Wood presents a head-and-shoulders portrait of himself at work at his easel, while five, presumably local people, look on from behind. The end of a red, gambrel-roof dairy barn neatly frames the group. Wood conceived Return from Bohemia for the cover of his never-written autobiography, underscoring the significance of the drawing to his life and his oeuvre. And to covers. The title of the work is said to refer to the artist’s decision, in the late 1920s, to quit his pursuit of plein-air Impressionism and return, from the profligate, Bohemian life he had found in Paris and Munich, to his roots, to local subject matter in Iowa. The good people now behind him, who will henceforth be both his subject and his audience, are they to whom he has ostensibly returned. In her landmark, 1983 survey of Grant Wood, Wanda Corn suggests that in spite of his momentous return, Wood and his audience are somehow “not reconciled.” 4 Sue Taylor sees too that the folks in Wood’s audience have their heads “bowed in reverence,” an indication that, in her view, Wood “wants more than anything the approval of his community.” 5 Return from Bohemia 1935 Beyond these observations, neither Corn nor Taylor provides any foundation from which to decipher this perplexing picture. In my view, Wood presents his onlookers not in a state of reverence but as if encased in sleep: they all have their heads solemnly bowed but their attention is not focused approvingly on Wood’s work and, in fact, their eyes are closed. Wood presents himself as sincere but not joyful. Wearing a very stern countenance and a plain shirt, without his trademark overalls, he is telling us that his art is neither of these people nor for them, that he is apart from his community not connected to it. These folks are, in a word, blind to his message. Or was he purposely hiding something to keep them in the dark? 6 4 Wanda M. Corn, Grant Wood: The Regionalist Vision (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) 5 Sue Taylor, “Wood’s American Logic” in Art in America January 2006 v 94 pp. 86-92 6 Cirrhosis of the liver derives its name from the Greek word kirrhos, for orange, the color of the diseased liver in this state. If, as early as 1934, Wood received a warning from his doctor that continued, heavy 5
Page 1 and 2: Hiding in Plain Sight: Decoding the
Page 3: Summary The image we have today of
Page 7 and 8: sensibility prevented him from mock
Page 9 and 10: Foreword: Art Historical Methodolog
Page 11 and 12: Unlike Robert Hughes, who applied t
Page 13 and 14: to categorize him according to his
Page 15 and 16: Remember that symbolism’s goal is
Page 17 and 18: e sufficiently obsessed to want to
Page 19 and 20: insistently inflicted upon itself.
Page 21 and 22: Chapter II The Author’s Methodolo
Page 23 and 24: Chapter III Sojourn in Munich: Wood
Page 25 and 26: Prior to his departure for Munich,
Page 27 and 28: conveyed her tenderness—and the p
Page 29 and 30: Window, 1927-29, we first see “an
Page 31 and 32: Plants—Oedipal, generational, inc
Page 33 and 34: excavating a deep, dark hole. 58 A
Page 35 and 36: Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two
Page 37 and 38: pastures. As such, Haying and The N
Page 39 and 40: Chapter V Xenophobia in 20 th Centu
Page 41 and 42: The hand pump, with 4 appearances,
Page 43 and 44: anatomically intriguing throat in V
Page 45 and 46: feathers, unmistakably similar to t
Page 47 and 48: historians, as was H. W. Janson, an
Page 49 and 50: At this late stage in his career, W
Page 51 and 52: The years 1932-33 were characterize
Page 53 and 54: with gin. The success of female imp
Page 55 and 56:
I aver that Wood’s fascination wi
Page 57 and 58:
claim descent. 88 That interpretati
Page 59 and 60:
of the fence, without which we woul
Page 61 and 62:
anthropomorphizing the contours of
Page 63 and 64:
hand pump, chickens, hands, horses,
Page 65 and 66:
left-leaning artists all over the w
Page 67 and 68:
the catalyst required for making su
Page 69 and 70:
keep out blacks, Jews, Catholics an
Page 71 and 72:
dispensing it. The dilemma was that
Page 73 and 74:
explain Nan’s extravagantly wavy,
Page 75 and 76:
the ascendance of both Nazi and Sta
Page 77 and 78:
that his outward life and work did
Page 79 and 80:
Obviously, certain lines like “Ga
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