Born and raised in Mississippi, Byron Burford was drawn to the University of Iowa through an interest in one of its professors: Iowa’s Regionalism artist, Grant Wood. The American Gothic painter mentored Burford as an undergraduate, helping him hone his talents and lifelong love of circuses and carnivals into a distinctive oeuvre. Burford earned his […]
Grant Wood
Posted inArts & Entertainment
The Stanley Museum of Art’s homecoming
In 2019, the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art was celebrating its 50th anniversary. It also had been nearly 11 years without a home. The floods of 2008, which wreaked havoc across Iowa, hit Cedar Rapids and Iowa City the hardest. The Cedar and Iowa Rivers crested at 31.12 ft and 31.5 ft, respectively, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Rare and ‘unusual’ Grant Wood works make up CRMA’s newest exhibition
Some of Grant Wood’s most well-known paintings depict Midwesterners wielding metal tools, from plows to garden hoes to, of course, pitchforks. Less known is that Wood worked with metal himself. As a child, he served as an apprentice at a Cedar Rapids metal shop, and was later commissioned by a number of local homeowners and […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Cedar Rapids Museum of Art celebrates its 125th anniversary with an exhibition of American and French impressionist painters
The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is kicking off its 125th anniversary with a new exhibition showcasing 19th century impressionist art.“Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism through the French Lens” will showcase the “complex relationship” between French impressionism in the late 1800s and the American interpretation of the style in the following decades.
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa Supreme Court ruling on Coe College’s Grant Wood paintings costs school’s endowment more than $5 million
The Iowa Supreme Court ruled last week that Coe College in Cedar Rapids can’t include their seven Grant Wood paintings among the college’s assets, which lowered the value of Coe’s endowment fund by $5.4 million. The seven paintings — “The Fruits of Iowa” — were originally a mural that businessman Eugene Eppley commissioned Wood to
Posted inArts & Entertainment
“Art in Public” meets #MeToo at 6th Biennial Grant Wood Symposium
This year, the University of Iowa Grant Wood Symposium — now in its sixth biennial iteration — tackles the topic of public art. The symposium, a program of the UI Office of Outreach and Engagement, presented by the Grant Wood Art Colony, seeks to engage with Wood’s legacy, this year by exploring one of his greatest passions.
Posted inLetters
Op-ed: Mollie Tibbetts and ‘American Gothic’
I drove by that cornfield past Guernsey the last week of July, along with thousands of others. It was during RAGBRAI, the annual bicycle ride across the state of Iowa that has become as much a part of the identity of the state as “American Gothic.”
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘One of the true icons of American art’: Cedar Rapids is hosting two major exhibitions of Edward Hopper’s artwork
Thanks to an exchange with the New York’s Whitney Museum, CRMA will present two Edward Hopper exhibitions, opening Saturday. Visitors may enjoy the exhibits for free on Saturday.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Grant Wood works from the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art and Coe College head to New York’s Whitney Museum
Thirty Grant Wood pieces, three from Coe College and 27 from the Cedar Rapids Art Museum, will journey to New York City for an exhibition in the Whitney Museum of American Art, where they will hang along with some of Wood’s other works, including the iconic “American Gothic.”
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘The Wood Problem’ explores the tension between Grant Wood and the University of Iowa
On Thursday, Nov. 9 at 6 p.m., a portion of The Wood Problem will be presented as a staged reading at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. The reading will be followed by a panel discussion with Bradley, Grant Wood Art Colony Founder Jim Hayes and University of Iowa Art History Professor Joni Kinsey. The event is free.
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Art City: Painting America in Paris
Paris in the 1920s was a hub of intellectual and artistic activity, luring artists from all over the world. Many American expats fled their homeland and its morass of economic troubles, institutionalized racism and strict censorship laws to Paris’s rarefied atmosphere, holding out the promise of artistic freedom and intellectual openness. Two influential American painters […]
