• American Paintings

• California

• San Francisco

• de Young Museum

Dinner for Threshers is a 1934 painting by Grant Wood, created as a study for a mural commission that never materialized, though the work was exhibited widely. Wood drew on childhood memories of the annual threshing on his family's Iowa farm. Near the peak of the barn roof, "1892" is inscribed, placing the scene in the first year of his life. Threshing was an important community event: harvesting the winter wheat or oat crop and separating the kernels of grain from the straw and seed casings. Men and boys worked in the fields while women and girls prepared the midday meal — "dinner" in rural Midwest tradition, with the evening meal called "supper". The triptych-like composition shows a cutaway view of the farmhouse. At left, farmworkers wash up. In the center, men in overalls sit at the table, hats politely removed indoors; their white foreheads contrast with their sunburned faces. A woman enters from the kitchen, raising a bowl. At right, two women work at the wood-burning stove, preparing the meal that anchors the day's labor. The painting is on display at the de Young Museum in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. - AsNotedIn