American Regionalist painter Grant Wood became an almost mythical figure in his lifetime, known best for his iconic 1930 painting, American Gothic. Yet what appears to embody a homespun tribute to a bygone agrarian age is, beneath the surface, an image of remarkable complexity and contradiction—much like the artist himself. Though he called himself a “farmer painter,” Wood had little interest in farming; rather, his life and work were shaped by artistic camaraderie, deeply rooted family ties, and a carefully constructed public persona.

Biographer and art historian R. Tripp Evans, author of Grant Wood: A Life, explores the Wood few people knew. Examining the painter’s formative years in rural Iowa and the complicated relationships Wood forged with his parents and sister Nan—the female model for American Gothic—Evans considers how the artist’s closeted homosexuality both fueled his work and threatened to destroy his career.

Through Wood’s unfinished autobiography, personal documents, and his paintings, Evans presents a multidimensional portrait of a man who became an unwitting national symbol. By unveiling the person behind the myth, he reveals the private forces that lent Wood’s Regionalist vision such uncanny power.

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