''Stone City, Iowa'' is an oil on wood painting by the American artist

Grant Wood Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891February 12, 1942) was an American artist and representative of Regionalism (art), Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for ''America ...

, from 1930. The painting is located at the

Joslyn Art Museum The Joslyn Art Museum, commonly referred to as the Joslyn, is a fine arts museum in Omaha, Nebraska, the largest in the state. It opened in 1931 at the initiative of Sarah H. Joslyn, in memory of her husband, businessman George A. Joslyn. Sinc ...

Omaha, Nebraska Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United S ...

Description

It depicts the former

boomtown A boomtown is a community that undergoes sudden and rapid population and economic growth, or that is started from scratch. The growth is normally attributed to the nearby discovery of a precious resource such as gold, silver, or oil, although t ...

of Stone City, Iowa. It was Wood's first major landscape painting. It is a study of a real place with which Wood was thoroughly familiar, but the landscape has been given fantastical curvy shapes, the trees are ornamental, and the bright surfaces are artificially patterned. The town had been built for its

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

quarries. When the painting was made, the town was in rapid decline due to the development of

Portland cement Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar (masonry), mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in th ...

. The painting thus depicts the transition from

industrialization Industrialisation (British English, UK) American and British English spelling differences, or industrialization (American English, US) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an i ...

and back to rural community. During the summers of 1932 and 1933, the town became the host of the

Stone City Art Colony The Stone City Art Colony was an art colony founded by Edward Rowan, Adrian Dornbush, and Grant Wood. The colony gathered on the John A. Green Estate in Stone City, Iowa during the summers of 1932 and 1933. History The colony was started b ...

, which Wood was part of. ''Stone City, Iowa'' was made the same year as Wood's ''

American Gothic ''American Gothic'' is a 1930 oil on beaverwood painting by the American Regionalist artist Grant Wood. Depicting a Midwestern farmer and his wife or daughter standing in front of their Carpenter Gothic style home, ''American Gothic'' is one ...

'' and both paintings were successes for the artist. Wood promoted his new style under the label of the "new movement".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone City, Iowa 1930 paintings Landscape paintings Paintings by Grant Wood Paintings in Nebraska

Description

See also

References