Research innovation elevated through Grant Wood Art Colony

IOWA CITY, IA – November 4, 2024 – The Grant Wood Art Colony (GWAC) has hired Ranelle Knight-Lueth to direct the Grant Wood Catalogue Raisonné initiative at the University of Iowa.

“Hiring the right person is imperative to this innovative project—someone who can both focus on the research and technology while also engaging the disparate stewards of Wood’s work,” GWAC Director Maura Pilcher explained. “Ranelle’s academic background and professional experience make her perfectly positioned to spearhead this project.”

Knight-Leuth received her M.A. in 2006 and Ph.D.  in 2015 from the University of Iowa. Her dissertation focuses on the combat art of World War I, for which she received national fellowships from the Center of Military History and the Norman Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies. Since then, she has researched and lectured on other arts created during the Great War as well as other topics, including women in American art, Italian fascist art, and art of the National Parks. Recently, she served as an Associate Professor of Art History and the Director of Galleries and Collections at Coe. Knight-Lueth has participated in select national symposia and consortiums, curated exhibitions at Coe College (Cedar Rapids) and with regional museums, served as a guest lecturer, and spoken at academic conferences.

Through her positions at Coe College, she has already gained insight to Iowa’s most famous artist. While the Director of Galleries and Collections, she coordinated the loans of three large Grant Wood mural panels to the Whitney Museum of American Art’s retrospective exhibition in 2018. In the short time since accepting this new position at the University of Iowa, she has already broadened the GWAC’s network and plans to visit with myriad organizations in hopes that previously unknown works emerge.

Learn more about the Grant Wood Catalogue Raisonné project by clicking here.