1. American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood, in the collection of
the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood's inspiration came from a cottage designed in the Gothic
Revival style with a distinctive upper window and a decision to paint the house along with "the
kind of people I fancied should live in that house." The painting shows a farmer standing beside
his spinster daughter. The figures were modeled by the artist's dentist and sister. The woman is
dressed in a colonial print apron mimicking 19th century Americana and the couple are in the
traditional roles of men and women, the man's pitchfork symbolizing hard labor, and the flowers
over the woman's right shoulder suggesting domesticity.
It is one of the most familiar images in 20th century American art, and one of the most parodied
artworks within American popular culture.
Creation
The Carpenter Gothic style house in Eldon, Iowa depicted in American Gothic
In 1930, Grant Wood, an American painter with European training, noticed the Dibble House, a
small white house built in the Carpenter Gothic architectural style 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 (1899–1990) 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
(1867–1950) 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.

2. Reception
Wood entered the painting in a competition at the Art Institute of Chicago. The judges deemed
it a "comic valentine," but a museum patron convinced them to award the painting the bronze
medal and $300 cash prize. The patron also convinced the Art Institute to buy the painting,
which remains there today. The image soon began to be reproduced in newspapers, first by the
Chicago Evening Post and then in New York, Boston, Kansas City, and Indianapolis. However,
Wood received a backlash when the image finally appeared in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. Iowans
were furious at their depiction as "pinched, grim-faced, puritanical Bible-thumpers". One
farmwife threatened to bite Wood's ear off. Wood protested that he had not painted a
caricature of Iowans but a depiction of Americans. Nan, apparently embarrassed at being
depicted as the wife of someone twice her age, began telling people that the painting was of a
man and his daughter, which Grant seems to confirm in a letter written by him to a Mrs. Nellie
Sudduth in 1941.
Art critics who had favorable opinions about the painting, such as Gertrude Stein and
Christopher Morley, also assumed the painting was meant to be a satire of rural small-town life.
It was thus seen as part of the trend toward increasingly critical depictions of rural America,
along the lines of Sherwood Anderson's 1919 Winesburg, Ohio, Sinclair Lewis's 1920 Main
Street, and Carl Van Vechten's The Tattooed Countess in literature.
Yet another interpretation sees it as an "old-fashioned mourning portrait... Tellingly, the curtains
hanging in the windows of the house, both upstairs and down, are pulled closed in the middle of
the day, a mourning custom in Victorian America. The woman wears a black dress beneath her
apron, and glances away as if holding back tears. One imagines she is grieving for the man
beside her". Grant had been only 10 when his father had died and later had lived for a decade
"above a garage reserved for hearses" so death was on his mind.

3. However, with the onset of the Great Depression, the painting came to be seen as a depiction of
steadfast American pioneer spirit. Wood assisted this transition by renouncing his Bohemian
youth in Paris and grouping himself with populist Midwestern painters, such as John Steuart
Curry and Thomas Hart Benton, who revolted against the dominance of East Coast art circles.
Wood was quoted in this period as stating, "All the good ideas I've ever had came to me while I
was milking a cow."
Parodies
American Gothic (1942) by Gordon Parks was the first prominent parody of the painting.
Today, center staff assist in dressing up visitors and taking their photograph outside the house.
The Depression-era understanding of the painting as a depiction of an authentically American
scene prompted the first well-known parody, a 1942 photo by Gordon Parks of cleaning woman
Ella Watson, shot in Washington, D.C.
American Gothic is one of the few paintings to reach the status of cultural icon, along with
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's The Scream. It is thus one of the most
reproduced – and parodied – images ever. Many artists have replaced the two people with other
known couples and replaced the house with well known houses.
References and parodies of the image have been numerous for generations, appearing regularly
in such media as postcards, magazines, animated cartoons, advertisements, comic books, album
covers, television shows and other artists, such as Tony Julianos parody, "American Goths" which
depicts goth teens instead of the traditional farmers. The cinematic posters of the films For
Richer or Poorer, Son In Law, American Gothic, and Good Fences parody the painting. Characters
in The Rocky Horror Picture Show pose as the couple during musical segments. It is also a key
motif in Anthony Weigh's play 2,000 Feet Away, which opens with a scene featuring the painting
at the Art Institute.

4. A sculpture entitled "God Bless America" that features the American Gothic couple went on
display in Chicago, Illinois, just south of the Tribune Tower on the Magnificent Mile of Michigan
Avenue, in December 2008 but has been removed as of February 26, 2010. Postcards mimicking
the couple with sitting US Presidents, Presidential nominees, and their spouses are popular
commercial products. Ohio State Buckeyes football games feature the painting on their
scoreboard; within a few seconds of its display, the man's eyes bug out and his tongue wags.
David Ackles borrowed the title for his 1973 American Gothic (album), as did The Smashing
Pumpkins for their 2008 EP American Gothic and a 1995 television horror series created by
Shaun Cassidy. Elton John and RuPaul portray the couple on the video for "Don't Go Breaking
My Heart". Astrovamps parodied the painting on the cover of their album, American Gothik. The
Ma and Pa couple at the beginning of the Doctor Who episode "Gridlock" are fashioned in the
style of the couple in the painting. The American Gothic couple have even been reinterpreted as
Living Dead Dolls twice, in 2004 and 2009.
In the opening scene of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Richard O'Brien and Patricia Quinn
appear as a farmer and his wife in parody of American Gothic. They are joined by a daughter
dressed in the same fashion.

6. Instructions for American Gothic Painting
1.Print out the line drawing of the
American Gothic painting.
2.Using it as a guide create a “Parody” of
the painting.
3.Review the examples following these
instructions.
4.Create your painting on illustration board
or oak tag. 12x18 size