The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art offers a free Zoom lecture "GW lithographs: Art for the People during the Great Depression" with Professor Joni Kinsey, Professor of Art History, School of Art and Art History, University of Iowa, on Sunday, March 28, at 2 p.m. CST.
In the last years of his life in the late 1930s Grant Wood produced nineteen lithographs that were sold through a new company, Associated American Artists, which sought to provide high quality, signed original prints to a wide audience. Innovative marketing through department stores and mail order with pricing of $5 per print sought to place "Art in Every Home" and support artists during a period of economic hardship. At the same time, New Deal government programs were also funding an array of projects that advocated "Art for the People," and fueling a boom in interest in the arts. This illustrated presentation will explore Grant Wood's contributions to these unprecedented programs, exploring their role in his larger career and ways that these projects resonate with viewers today.