Oliver Wiswell

Inscriptions

Signed and dated, lower left: GRANT / WOOD 1940

Label

In this small painting, two armies confront each other over the head of a pensive-looking man in a white powdered wig. On the right, British redcoats in a uniform line thrust their bayonets toward colonial forces behind the Continental flag. Grant Wood painted this scene as a cover for Kenneth Roberts’s 1940 book Oliver Wiswell, a work of historical fiction about a British Loyalist during the American Revolution. In the book, Roberts uses the fictional Wiswell as a way to examine ideas of patriotism, personal and cultural conflict, and the impacts of war. These themes would resonate with contemporary readers who, in 1940, were experiencing the first full year of what would become World War II.

From the 2025-26 exhibition Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, curated by Michael W. Hartman (Jonathan Little Cohen Curator of American Art), Haely Chang (Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art), Elizabeth Rice Mattison (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art), Ashley B. Offill (Curator of Collections), and Evonne Fuselier (Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow)

Course History

ARTH 17, The Power of Place: Urban and Rural Images in American Art, 1900-1945, Sarah Powers, Winter 2014

Writing 5.20, Foundations of Dartmouth: Samson Occom, Edward Mitchell, and the History and Cultures of Native American, African American, and "Minority" Students at Dartmouth College, Doug Moody 1, Fall 2025

Native American and Indigenous Studies 42.01, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies 40.01, Gender Issues in Native American Life, Jami Powell, Winter 2026

Native American and Indigenous Studies 81.03, History 96.08, Pen and Ink Witchcraft, Colin Calloway, Winter 2026

Exhibition History

American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art, Israel Sack Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 9-December 9, 2007.

American Paintings from the Dartmouth Collection, 1910-1960, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 17-April 12, 1998.

Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, Harteveldt Family Gallery and Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 18, 2025 - August 8, 2026.

Publication History

James M. Dennis, Grant Wood: A Study in American Art and Culture, New York: The Viking Press (A Studio Book), fig. 129, p. 136, discussed, p. 132.

Art in America, Advertisement for Estate of Kenneth Roberts' auction, July-August, 1967, p. 121.

Kenneth Roberts, Oliver Wiswell, New York: Doubleday & Co., book jacket illustration, 1940.

Barbara J. MacAdam, American Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Muesum of Art, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2007, p. 94, no. 70.

Provenance

The artist, with Associated American Artists; purchased by Kenneth Roberts (1885-1957) in 1940 from Associated American Artists; purchased by Joseph and Eileen P. Barber, Biddeford, Maine from the Sale of the Estate of Kenneth Roberts, F.O. Bailey Company, Portland, Maine, July 18, 1967, lot 58.

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Subjects