{"id":1031,"date":"2009-09-09T13:44:37","date_gmt":"2009-09-09T20:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/09\/grant_wood_the_case_for_his_cl\/"},"modified":"2009-09-09T13:44:37","modified_gmt":"2009-09-09T20:44:37","slug":"grant_wood_the_case_for_his_cl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/09\/grant_wood_the_case_for_his_cl.html","title":{"rendered":"Grant Wood: the case for his closet"},"content":{"rendered":"

James H. Maroney, Jr.<\/a>, art dealer and former head of American Paintings at Christie’s, took issue with my review<\/a> of Nathan DiPietro, specifically, my comment that Wood was an “America First, bread-basket regionalist.” who might have been a “narrow man.”<\/p>\n

Instead, wrote Maroney, Wood was only pretending to be narrow because he was gay and hiding it. Maroney’s essay here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

From his email:<\/p>\n

Your views on his art and his politics are essentially shared by virtually everyone in the art world including his biographers and unfortunately they are entirely wrong. Wood was not an “America first Bread basket regionalist” whatever that is. He was a swinging, Herbert Hoover, prohibition hating lefty. The man you think he was was his public persona, which he put up for his survival and which was so successful, the real Grant Wood remains hidden to this day.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To repeat, my views of Wood’s work are entirely appreciative. The only reason anyone might care if Wood were wide in his personal views or narrow is the quality of his work, which, after reading Maroney’s essay, I’m not as certain as he contain so many clues to secrets of a personal nature. <\/p>\n

Also, even if Maroney’s premise is sound, few would agree with his apparent contention that being a closet case implies the (hidden) existence of empathy for others. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James H. Maroney, Jr., art dealer and former head of American Paintings at Christie’s, took issue with my review of Nathan DiPietro, specifically, my comment that Wood was an “America First, bread-basket regionalist.” who might have been a “narrow man.” Instead, wrote Maroney, Wood was only pretending to be narrow because he was gay and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1031\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}