Page 310 - Swann Galleries - Old Master Through Modern Prints - Sale 2312 - May 1, 2013

394 ● GRANT WOOD
Sultry Night.
Lithograph, 1939. 225x292 mm; 87/8x111/2
inches, full margins. Edition of 100.
Signed in pencil, lower right.A very good
impression of this scarce lithograph.
Wood (1891-1942), best known for his
depictions of rural American life,was one of
the original members of a Midwestern
American art movement in the 1930s
known as “Regionalism.” He was dedicated
to spreading his artistic tenets and founded
an artist colony near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in
1932 before he became a fine art professor
at the University of Iowa and the state
director of the Public Arts Fund in 1934.As
Wood was so heavily involved with
teaching, and because his technique was
meticulously time-consuming, he only
produced approximately 50 paintings and 19
lithographs over the course of his lifetime.
His lithographs, which represent the bulk
of his output at the end of his career, were
made in limited editions of 250, published
by Association of American Artists (AAA),
New York, and advertised through a
national catalogue for $5 a piece.However,
Sultry Night is a particularly significant,
controversial lithograph because of its
blatant, realistic depiction of the male nude
(which is coincidentally the only nude
represented by a “Regionalist” artist).The
male nude was so shocking that the New
York postmaster refused to send what were
deemed indecent lithographs—therefore,
only 100 impressions of Sultry Night were
produced and sold “over the counter” at
AAA. Cole 6.
[15,000/20,000]