American Gothic

Here we have one of the most recognized paintings in all of American art, and the funny thing is that almost everyone gets it wrong. Many people assume the stern pair are husband and wife, but Grant Wood actually imagined them as a farmer and his unmarried daughter. He painted them in front of a small white house in Iowa, drawn to its pointed window in the Gothic style, which is exactly where the title comes from. The models were real people from Wood's life: his sister Nan posed as the woman, and his dentist stood in as the serious man holding the pitchfork.

Wood worked in a style sometimes called Regionalism, which focused on everyday rural life in the American Midwest rather than the flashy modern art coming out of Europe at the time. The crisp detail and stiff, almost stretched-out faces give the painting an old-fashioned, slightly tense feeling. When it first appeared in 1930, some Iowans were offended, thinking it poked fun at country folk, while Wood insisted he meant it as a tribute to their hard-working spirit. That mix of seriousness and possible mischief is part of why the image has been copied and joked about countless times, showing up in cartoons, ads, and parodies for nearly a century.