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Friday, February 13, 1942

WOOD PAINTED LIFE IN IOWA
His Works Aroused Much Criticism 

Wood-
continued from page 1 

that inspiration came to him best during milking time.
During this period Wood felt the desire to reproduce his impressions of his surroundings. He scooped blue clay from nearby creek and attempted sculpturing after Lorado Taft had lectured in Cedar Rapids
By the age of 15 he was turning out water colors with professional ease.
Wood received a scholarship to attend the Handicraft Guild at Minneapolis, Minn., following his graduation from high school. At the end of a year he decided there was little chance for advancement in art. 
He turned to night-watching in a Minneapolis morgue, and finally came back to Cedar Rapids. He worked as a machinist's helper in the Rock Island railroad shops, then taught at Rosedale rural school near Cedar Rapids.
Through the negligence of an absent-minded professor-perhaps it was kindness-Wood attended art classes at the State University of Iowa for an entire academic year without enrolling or paying tuition.
Then Wood went to work in a Chicago, Ill., shop that manufactured handmade jewelry. He attended night classes in the Chicago Art Institute.
Wood and a partner attempted to go into business for themselves. The pair rented an abandoned farmhouse, invested all their spare cash in tools and machinery. Then war broke out in Europe.
Built Shack
Nobody wanted handmade jewelry. Wood tramped the sidewalks for a year, looking for work, finally came home again in 1915. 
For two years Wood, his mother and his sister lived in a shack Wood built by himself. Wood trapped rabbits and roasted them in an outdoor fireplace. He painted houses.
Wood was drafted following American entrance into World War I. He became ill at Camp Dodge.
While convalescing he sketched his fellows-two bits for the head of a doughboy, a dollar for an officer. He served finally at Camp Leach, Wash., in a camouflage unit.
Upon his return home in 1919 Wood taught art in the public schools at Cedar Rapids. Summers he traveled in Europe. For a year he attended the Academie Julian in Paris, France.
European Influence    
He raised a pink beard, dressed in traditional Bohemian fashion, and turned out many Europe-influenced paintings, mot of them now forgotten.
His first picture of importance came after he had returned to Cedar Rapids from a trip to Munich, Germany, and painted a portrait called "John B. Turner, Pioneer."
Mother's Portrait 
In 1929 and 1930, Wood painted one of his best pictures, "Woman With Plants," which was a portrait of his mother. It was followed shortly by "American Gothic"
"Dinner for Threshers," "Young Corn," "Fall Plowing," flowed from his brush soon afterward-all strictly Iowan.
In 1932 Wood organized and operated the Stone City Art colony near Anamosa. In 1934 he was appointed director of public works art projects in Iowa. At this time he began lecturing in graphic and plastic arts at the State University of Iowa art department. Later in the year he was appointed associate professor.
He was appointed professor of fine arts in June, 1941.
Married, Divorced.
He married Mrs. Sara Sherman Maxon in March, 1935, at Minneapolis. She was a singer and music instructor at Cedar Rapids. Wood divorced her in 1939, charging "inhuman treatment."     
Wood's last paintings were "Parson Weem's Fable" and a pair, "Spring in Town," and "Spring in the Country."
The last two were completed last summer in a studio Wood set up in an abandoned railroad station at Clear Lake, Ia.
No picture Wood painted incurred such anathema as 
"Daughters of revolution"
This painting of three dour women was egged on by Wood's recollections of a fight that arose after the Cedar Rapids American Legion post had sent him to Germany to study and supervise the manufacture of a large stained glass window he had designed for the Cedar Rapids memorial coliseum. 
The D.A.R. entered the fray that arose when he returned. Angry opponents cried out that Wood had disgraced the American flag by having the window done by erstwhile enemies of war. The window never was installed.
Said Wood later, following the appearance of the picture:
"I don't like toryism. I don't like to have anyone try to set up an aristocracy of birth in a republic."
Following his divorce Wood continued to dwell in the old white-fenced, brick house in which he and his wife had lived.

This Painting Aroused a Storm of Controversy
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Probably the most famous painting by Grant Wood was his "Daughters of Revolution." The painting, showing dour-visaged, stern-jawed characters, with their hair combed down tightly, drew a storm of criticism down on the Iowa artist.
 
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In the 1920's Grant Wood built up a local reputation in Iowa as a painter of rather conventional but pleasing pictures. Then, suddenly he swung into a vigorous style, somewhat in the manner of the Flemmish, but unrelated to any particular school. "American Gothic" (above), painted just as Wood came into complete realization of his new technique, is considered by many to be one of, if not the finest, examples of his work.

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Grant Wood During World War.
He Was a Camouflage Artist.

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Grant Wood, The Boy.
Went to Work at Age of 10.

Wood cherished his collection of old cut glass, and entertained friends at a plywood table seating 20 persons, which he built himself. Surviving are a sister, Mrs. E. E. Graham, los Angeles, Cal., and a brother, Frank, Waterloo, Ia.
He also is survived by thousands of artists who heard his call to cut off their pink beards, leave their Bohemian centers and return to do their work in snug towns and broad fields from which they sprung.
Famous paintings by Wood and the owners are:
"Woman with Plants," Cedar Rapids Art association: "American Gothic," Friends of American Art, Chicago, Ill., Art institute; "Dinner for Threshers," George M. Moffett, Jamestown, Md.; "Daughters of Revolution," Edward G. Robinson, Beverly Hills, Cal.; "Parson Weems's Fable," J. P. Marquand, New York, N. Y.; "Spring in Town," Sheldon Swope Art gallery of Terre Haute, Ind.; "Spring in the Country," Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, jr., New York, N. Y., and "The Birthplace of Herbert Hoover," Gardner Cowles, jr., of Des Moines.

SUNDAY 'CHATS' OUT, COMPETED WITH SERMONS 
WASHINGTON, D. C. (AP)-President Roosevelt has stopped making fireside radio chats on Sunday nights, because clergymen found they coincided with evening church services.
Presidential Secretary Stephen Early said the decision to stop the Sunday night talks was made about a year ago. 
He indicated that exceptions might be made in cases of "great emergency." 
Mr. Roosevelt's next fireside chat will probably be delivered on Monday, Feb. 23.

OLDER PEOPLE!
Many Doctors Advise This Great Tonic
As a valuable help in building up resistance-and aiding the body recuperate when run-down for [[document is cut off]]

Transcription Notes:
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