The 16 square puzzle using Grant Wood's 'American Gothic' painting. When the puzzle is complete, you will jump to a 25 square puzzle with the same image. You can go there directly by clicking the red square.

The 25 square puzzle using Grant Wood's 'American Gothic' painting. When the puzzle is complete, you will jump to a 36 square puzzle with the same image. You can go there directly by clicking the red square.

The 36 square puzzle using Grant Wood's 'American Gothic' painting. When the puzzle is complete, you will jump to a 49 square puzzle with the same image. You can go there directly by clicking the red square.

The 49 square puzzle using Grant Wood's 'American Gothic' painting. You will enjoy reading the information I have gleaned about the artist and the painting. Just click here.

The puzzle is getting to be difficult indeed! The applet permits up to a ten square puzzle. If there is any interest in my listing a puzzle of greater difficulty, drop me a line & I'll add it in.

I was a little disappointed to find so little data on the web about the artist whose classic 'American Gothic' is surely more famous than almost any other American painting. Perhaps I was expecting too much! What follows has been gleaned from a great many sites, often contradictory, all of whom I however thank.

Grant De Volson Wood (1891-1942) was born on Feb. 13, 1891, the second of four children, to Quaker and Presbyterian parents, on a modest farm near Anamosa, a small community located east of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He died from inoperable liver cancer on Feb. 12, 1942 on the day before he attained 51 years of age. He painted 'American Gothic', the painting that graces this page, in 1930. It is an oil on beaver board (Beaver board is a building construction sheet made of compressed wood fibres), & is 29 7/8 x 24 7/8 inches in size. The original painting is in the Art Institute of Chicago, an appropriate place perhaps since Grant studied there as a young man.

Grant Wood began to draw at a very early age. When he was 10, his father died & the family moved to nearby Cedar Rapids. He studied art in Minneapolis & at the Art Institute of Chicago and for several years he earned a living as a craftsman in wood and metal. He served in the Army in World War 1 (painting camouflage in Washington, D.C.) and in 1923-24 & again in 1927 he travelled to Europe, studying for a while at the Academie Julian in Paris. By nature a meticulous craftsman, he found great inspiration in the work of 15th century Flemish masters. He developed his own meticulous iconic style based on traditional American rural values. Back in Iowa, he taught art and began painting local scenes & portraits. 'American Gothic' caused a sensation when it was exhibited in Chicago in 1930. 'Stone City, Iowa', Grant Wood's first major landscape, was also painted that year. He founded a short-lived summer art colony in Stone City, Iowa, & was honoured with a special chair in fine arts at the University of Iowa (but never took up the post). He married actress-singer Sara Maxon in 1935 but the marriage ended in divorce in 1939. It would seem that he did not achieve financial success in his lifetime.

You may be interested to know that the Gothic house, here & here, prominent in the painting, is known historically as the 'Dibble House', & stands to this day in Eldon, Iowa, near Ottumwa in the south-east of the state. The house is today owned by the State Historical Society of Iowa but can only be viewed from the outside. The artist was intrigued by the modest 1 1/2 story frame house with its (as he described it) 'pretentious' Gothic style windows, one in each gable end. Grant apparently intended the couple to represent a typical small town resident & his daughter, but most interpret them as man and wife. His sister Nan, (Nan Wood Graham who passed away in 1990), & his dentist, Dr. Byron H. McKeeby, posed as the sour faced couple. The artist worked on the painting for two months & entered it into a juried exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. There was doubt that the exhibition would even accept the painting for showing! But it won a bronze medal & a $300.00 prize, presumably a considerable sum at the time. It would seem however that while he won the medal, he effectively sold the painting for that sum to the Art Institute. One 'sour faced?' art critic called the painting 'an insulting caricature of plain country people.' I was interested to learn that the public turned its back on the painters of the 'American Scene' when the economic crisis of the Depression years was over. Grant Wood was deeply affected by the rejection & before his death had started a new career under another name (I can find no reference to the name he used). His works are now very valuable indeed - when this page was first started, in or about 1999, the highest price would seem to have been U.S. $508,500 in 1995 for one of his works. The current (early 2013) record dates from 2005, I learn.

You may see the source of my image, on Carol Gerten's magnificent (CGFA) site here. A modest image of the artwork can be found on the Art Institute of Chicago site. While a giant image of it can be viewed here. Access to Grant Wood's major works & their locations can be found here. There would appear to be no official Grant Wood website but any search engine will lead you to many sites where you can purchase posters etc. of the painting and even a collectors plate. You can visit the artist's gravesite on line - the third image on that page.

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A number of images are included above - Nan Wood Graham & Dr. Byron H. McKeeby, who posed as the sour faced couple, a postage stamp of the painting & two images of the artist.

This fine painting can be seen everywhere, often in a tasteless caricature of the original. I think, though, that the artist would probably have enjoyed the 'Muppets', and particularly enjoyed Jim Henson's version of 'American Gothique'. I had it in a magnificent Year 2000 calendar that featured masterpieces from the 'Kermitage' collection. The scan does not do the calendar image justice - an original described as being a housepaint on roofing felt & signed by the artist with his full name and social security number. It was a fine calendar & maybe it was reissued for a later year.