Thursday, November 20, 2014

Grant Wood at Auction

    • Born in Anamosa, Iowa, Grant Wood spent his career painting the landscapes and people of the American Midwest. Wood studied at the Art Institute in 1912 and made several trips to Europe in the 1920s.
      He went to Munich in 1928 to supervise the manufacture of a stained-glass window he had designed. Inspired by early Flemish paintings in museums he visited, Wood developed and refined his style, characterized by carefully drawn details and clear, strong lines.
      He was a member of a group of artists known as regionalists, who were part of the American Scene movement of the 1930s. Wood and other artists such as John Steuart Curry and Thomas Hart Benton rejected the modern movements of their European colleagues, and instead looked nostalgically to America's past and rural life for inspiration. Their works reflect the strong nationalist spirit of this period in American history. The interest in specific regions of the country also found expression in the fiction of William Faulkner and John Steinbeck, as well as government programs that encouraged local arts and crafts traditions.
      Wood not only depicted the farms of his Iowa childhood in his work, but he also painted the farmers, celebrating their enduring, virtuous, and heroic spirit. He could also view them with wit, as in his most famous painting, American Gothic. That portrayal of a farmer and his wife won him national recognition and a bronze medal in 1930 from the Art Institute of Chicago, where it now hangs. The artist died in Iowa City in 1942.



      Sotheby’s  NOVEMBER 30, 2005




      Grant Wood’s iconic Spring Plowing  painted in 1932, estimated to bring $3/5million, is the most important work by Wood to ever appear at auction. In Spring Plowing, the emerald green hills, neatly trimmed tracts of land and bright blue sky are emblematic of the distinctive agrarian vision that defined Wood’s mature regionalist style. Celebrated for his depictions of mid-western farm life, Time magazine hailed Wood in 1934 asthe “chief philosopher and greatest teacher of representational U.S. art.”


      Sotheby's April 16, 2014




      GRANT WOOD
      CAFE DE PALAIS
      LOT SOLD. 28,125 




      GRANT WOOD
      A LAZY AFTERNOON
      LOT SOLD. 16,250 


      • Sotheby's 2012







        • GRANT WOOD
          PATCHWORK QUILT


          Estimate 50,000 — 70,000


          GRANT WOOD
          TREES ON INDIAN CREEK
          Estimate 20,000 — 30,000
             


           Christies 2008




          GRANT WOOD (1891-1942)




        STUDY FOR "FEBRUARY"

        Estimate $400,000 - $600,000 Price Realized $1,058,500 



        GRANT WOOD





        FERTILITY (C. 15)

        Estimate $5,000 - $7,000 Price Realized $5,000


        Swann 2008


        GRANT WOOD
         Fruits; Vegetables; Tame Flowers; Wild Flowers.
        Estimate $10,000 - $15,000
        Price Realized (with Buyer's Premium) $9,800



      • GRANT WOOD 
        July Fifteenth.
        Estimate $4,000 - $6,000
        Price Realized (with Buyer's Premium) $6,720


      GRANT WOOD 
      Approaching Storm.
      Estimate $5,000 - $8,000
      Price Realized (with Buyer's Premium) $6,720


    • GRANT WOOD 
      January.
      Estimate $4,000 - $6,000
      Price Realized (with Buyer's Premium) $5,280



    GRANT WOOD 
    March.
    Estimate $4,000 - $6,000
    Price Realized (with Buyer's Premium) $5,040

    • GRANT WOOD 
      Tree Planting Group.
      Estimate $4,000 - $6,000
      Price Realized (with Buyer's Premium) $3,675



    • GRANT WOOD 
      Seed Time and Harvest.
      Estimate $3,000 - $5,000
      Price Realized (with Buyer's Premium) $3,360




    GRANT WOOD 
    Shrine Quartet.
    Estimate $3,000 - $5,000
    Price Realized (with Buyer's Premium) $3,120


Sotheby's 2007

GRANT WOOD
MARCH (CZEST. W-18)
 LOT SOLD. 4,063 



 Christie's 2014



Christie's 2005




GRANT WOOD (1891-1942)

SULTRY NIGHT (COLE 6) 
 Price Realized $3,840 


Christie’s 2001