In the Spring

Inscriptions

Signed, in graphite, lower right margin: Grant Wood Watermark: GCM

Label

With hands on his hips and a ready smile, this farmer looks out at us with pride and satisfaction, having established—apparently without field hands or modern machinery—the beginnings of a fence to mark his perfectly tended land. This stylized, reassuring image celebrates farming as a bucolic, productive lifestyle that supports the country’s vital food needs. Given the exponential growth of cities around this time, coupled with the enduring hardships of the Great Depression, Grant Wood’s widely circulated print would likely have resonated with an audience wistful for an earlier, seemingly idyllic lifestyle centered on the land.

From the 2022 exhibition This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, curated by Jami C. Powell, Curator of Indigenous Art; Barbara J. MacAdam, former Jonathan L. Cohen Curator of American Art; Thomas H. Price, former Curatorial Assistant; Morgan E. Freeman, former DAMLI Native American Art Fellow; and Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art

Course History

WRIT 7, Religion and Literature: Revisioning the Invisible, Nancy Crumbine, Spring 2014

WRIT 5, Writing into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Spring 2014

WRIT 5, Writing into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Fall 2014

WRIT 5, Writing into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Fall 2014

ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States, Mary Coffey, Winter 2015

WRIT 5, Writing Into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Winter 2015

ARTH 71, The "American Century": Modern Art in the United States. Mary Coffey, Winter 2015

WRIT 5, Writing Into the Wilderness, Nancy Crumbine, Winter 2015

ANTH 7.05, Animals and Humans, Laura Ogden, Winter 2022

GEOG 31.01, Postcolonial Geographies, Erin Collins, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ANTH 50.05, Environmental Archaeology, Madeleine McLeester, Winter 2022

ARTH 5.01, Introduction to Contemporary Art, Mary Coffey and Chad Elias, Winter 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

ANTH 3.01, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Chelsey Kivland, Summer 2022

SPAN 65.15, Wonderstruck: Archives and the Production of Knowledge in an Unequal World, Silvia Spitta and Barbara Goebel, Summer 2022

Exhibition History

A Self-Portrait of America, Lower Jewett Corridor, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 18-September 16, 1984.

Hail, Holy Land: The Idea of America, Strauss and Barrows Galleries, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, June 27-September 7, 1980.

Looking for America: Prints of Rural Life from the 1930's and 1940's, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 3, 1994-March 5, 1995.

This Land: American Engagement with the Natural World, Rush Family Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 5–April 11, 2022.

Publication History

Barbara J. MacAdam, Looking for America: Prints of Rural Life from the 1930s and 1940s, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 1994, listed no. 59, ill. cover.

Provenance

Ferdinand Roten Gallery, Baltimore, Maryland; sold to present collection, 1956.

Catalogue Raisonne

Cole 13; Czestochowski W-13

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