Perhaps one of the most famous and celebrated pictures in American history is
Grant Wood's work entitled "
American Gothic", so named for the
carpenter gothic style house in the background. Wood came across the house in August,
1930 in the little town of
Eldon, Iowa. For the image, Wood's sister is
Nan and
Dentist Dr. Byron McKeeby both posed idividually in front of the house, on seperate sittings. When he finished the painting, he submitted it to a
juried exhibition at
The Art Institute of Chicago, where it remains today. It took home a
bronze, and a prize of $300.00.
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Sources:
Most of the text was taken from http://www.arts.ufl.edu/art/rt_room/wood/gothic.html
The ASCII art was taken from http://users.inetw.net/~mullen/woodg.htm