Mrs. Irwin Strasburger

Strasburger, Clara R. Sax

American, 1889 - 1981

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We look down across a stylized landscape of rolling green fields divided into quarters by two sand-colored roads in this square painting. The scene is lit from the upper left, and the horizon almost brushes the top of the composition. Closest to us, in the lower left corner, one road curves into view from behind a green hill and drops steeply down into the valley below. An area of peach and tan in the lower right corner could be the base of a sawed-off tree trunk. There are two wooden posts just beyond it, and a sign affixed to one reads, “SOLON 5 MI.” The road stretches almost straight into the distance, where it is intersected by a second road, running nearly horizontally across the painting. The land rises and falls in gently swelling hills to either side of the roads and deep into the distance. Fields covering those hills are crosshatched with clay-orange brushstrokes over a blend of celery and pea green. To our left, in the valley, the edge of a white farmhouse with a clay-red roof nestles among pine and dark green trees. Another cluster of round trees, like a bunch of pompoms, sits in a field along the road, to our right. Across the bisecting road, also to our right, is a brick-red barn and white windmill standing before more trees. Touches and a few swipes of white suggest a horse and chickens in front of the farmhouse. The road sweeping down past these buildings is dotted with white fence posts. One of the hills rippling into the distance is topped with a tan-colored plot of land. In the top quarter of the composition, the narrow sky is filled with a shimmering blend of short, dense strokes dotted across the canvas, ranging from soft blues on the left to peach and pale pink on the right. The artist signed and dated the work in red paint in the lower left corner, “GRANT WOOD 1939” following a copyright symbol.
Grant Wood, New Road, 1939, oil on canvas on paperboard mounted on hardboard, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Strasburger, 1982.7.2

New Road

Grant Wood · 1939 · oil on canvas on paperboard mounted on hardboard ·  Accession ID  1982.7.2

From a low vantage point, we look up along rolling, verdant farm fields bathed in sunlight that fill most of this nearly square canvas. Rows of stylized, gold-green hay almost fill landscape painting. The horizon line is high, almost at the top of the painting, and the hill in front of us slopes from the horizon down to a point far below us, at the bottom edge of the canvas. Along the hill, roughly parallel rows of harvested hay are bundled into distinctive tube-like mounds, with paths between them. The field is interrupted only by a small, solitary young tree near the lower left corner. Two muted, terracotta-red barns or outbuildings with pitched, tan-colored roofs perch at the top of the hill. They stand outlined against a light, clear blue sky at the top center of the composition. The canopies of several rounded trees puff up beyond the buildings, on the far side of the hill. A fan-like weathervane with flat, blade-like paddles sits atop the smaller barn. The other, larger building has a higher pitched roof with a small, lantern-shaped cupola on top and a wide door on the right side where the roof slopes down in a lean-to type of structure. A piece of farm machinery is parked in the field at the top right. At the bottom center of the canvas, a brown ceramic jug with a handle and red stopper rests on the ground in between the rows of bundled hay. The artist signed and dated the work with red paint in the bottom left corner: “GRANT WOOD 1939.” There is also a red painted copyright symbol to the left of the name.
Grant Wood, Haying, 1939, oil on canvas on paperboard mounted on hardboard, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Irwin Strasburger, 1982.7.1

Haying

Grant Wood · 1939 · oil on canvas on paperboard mounted on hardboard ·  Accession ID  1982.7.1