Joslyn

Grant Wood
Stone City Iowa (1930)

 
At Joslyn Art Museum, Grant Wood's Stone City, Iowa is a window into the Depression era of rural America. Wood was raised by Quaker parents on a small Iowa farm, and his childhood experience would become the foundation for his art. He was known as a philosopher-artist and one of the leading regionalist painters in America. Wood's depiction of life in an idyllic town was his first major landscape, and it provides subtle commentary about American rural life. The picturesque setting is reassuring and unreal at the same time. That's because Stone City was a boomtown gone bust at a time when industrialization was challenging the future of rural life. Wood's tribute to idealized memories is an art treasure of Nebraska at Joslyn Art Museum.