American Gothic

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American Gothic

Grant Wood, 1930

oil on beaverboard

74.3 × 62.4 cm

Art Institute, Chicago

64 worlds greatest paintings

American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood, from 1930. Portraying a pitchfork-holding man and a woman in front of a house of Carpenter Gothic style, it is one of the most familiar images in 20th century American art. The models, who sat for the painting separately, were the artist's sister, Nan, and his dentist, Dr. Byron McKeeby. The house is located in Eldon, Iowa. The painting resides at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Wood wanted to depict the traditional roles of men and women as the man is holding a pitchfork symbolizing hand labor. Wood placed plants behind the woman to convey the image of a domestic housewife, though the artist had intended her to represent the farmer's unmarried daughter.

American Gothic remains one of the most famous paintings in the history of American art. It is a primary example of Regionalism, a movement that aggressively opposed European abstract art, preferring depictions of rural American subjects rendered in a representational style. Some believe that Wood used this painting to satirize the narrow-mindedness and repression that has been said to characterize Midwestern culture, though he denied this accusation. The painting may also be read as a glorification of the moral virtue of rural America or even as an ambiguous mixture of praise and satire.