Adoration of the Home

Appreciate this detail of an Allegorical Figure holding up Home as if on a pedestal, painted by American artist Grant Wood in 1921-2.

Holding a model home aloft as a devotional object, this central figure is painted as a secular Madonna in this neoclassical allegory that draws on the visual language of Renaissance altarpieces.
Grant Wood was hired by local Cedar Rapids, Iowa realtor Henry Ely to paint this scene as an advertisement for the developer’s model homes.
100 years later I feel connected to both the realtor and artist who celebrated Home and immortalized it through art while also making a livelihood from our basic need to nest.

Grant Wood is most famous for his painting “American Gothic.”
Both of these two works, along with many more are currently on exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City until June 10, 2018.