Grant Wood Studio and Visitor Center

  • Originally: George B Douglas House
  • Also Known As: Turner Mortuary East

  • Travel Genus: Sight
  • Sight Category: Building

Grant Wood lived and worked in a studio he created on the top floor of the rear carriage house, notable for painting here American Gothic, 1930 (Art Institute of Chicago), Woman with Plants, 1929 (Cedar Rapids Museum of Art), Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, 1931 (Metropolitan Museum of Art), Daughters of the Revolution, 1932 (Cincinnati Art Museum), and Dinner for Threshers, 1934 (de Young Museum). - AsNotedIn


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Timeline

Y/M/D Person Association Description Composition Food Event
Y/M/D Person Association Description Composition Food Event
1897/00/00 Founder of the Douglas Starch Works, George B Douglas buys three adjacent 2nd Ave lots to build a home. A few years later, construction begins on the new residence and carriage house.
1906/00/00 Caroline Sinclair, owner of Brucemore estate, trades homes with the George B Douglas so she could live in the city.
1923/00/00 Grant Wood Architect Grant Wood remodels Sinclairs' into a Mortuary for John and David Turner. He decorated the interior, landscaped the grounds, designed the iron gates out front which became Turner's logo, the stained-glass window in the chapel and biers to hold caskets.
1924/00/00 Grant Wood Home and Studio At the request of the Turners, Wood begins to build a studio and residence above the garage. Living rent-free allows Grant to give up his teaching at McKinley High School. Wood designed the iron work, a sunken bathtub, skylights and checkerboard floor.
1924/00/00 Grant Wood Artist Grant Wood crafts a door for his studio from a primitive coffin lid, covers it in linen and paints it. A glass window is lettered to indicated where he is. Door to 5 Turner Alley
1929/00/00 Grant Wood Artist Grant Wood paints "Woman with Plants". Woman with Plants (painting)
1930/09/00 Wood's sister Nan Wood Graham poses for "American Gothic". The cameo brooch belongs to their mother, Hattie Wood. Grant often borrowed his mother's clothes and jewelry to dress Nan, shaping the painting's pioneer-era look. American Gothic (painting)
1930/09/00 Grant Wood Painter Wood spends about three intense weeks in his studio painting American Gothic, weaving separate studies of the farmer, the farmers wife, and the Carpenter Gothic house in Eldon, since his models never posed together. He also refined the pointed window. American Gothic (painting)
1931/00/00 Grant Wood Painter Grant Wood paints "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere". The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (painting) The Midnight Ride
1932/00/00 Grant Wood Health Grant, his sister Nan, and their mother are injured in a fire in the studio. Grant replaced the original wooden floor with the one that remains today.
1932/00/00 Grant Wood Artist Grant Wood paints "Daughters of Revolution". Daughters of Revolution (painting)
1934/00/00 Grant Wood Artist Drawing on childhood memories of his family's Iowa farm, Grant Wood completes "Dinner for Threshers", a study for a mural commission that he will never receive. Dinner for Threshers (painting)
1972/00/00 John B Turner II (son of David Turner) and his wife Happy donate 84 works by Grant Wood to the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. They make additional gifts through 1983.
2002/00/00 The Grant Wood Studio building and related property are donated to the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.
2004/00/00 Grant Wood Studio and Visitor Center opens to the public.

Data »

Particulars for Grant Wood Studio and Visitor Center:
Architectural Style American Colonial Revival
Area of Significance Architecture
Criteria Architecture-Engineering
Area of Significance Art
Sight Category Building
Architectural Style Georgian Revival
Level of Significance National
Criteria Person
Historic Use Single dwelling



US National Registry of Historic Places Data »

Accurate at time of registration:

PLACE DETAILS
Registry Name:
Registry Address:
Registry Number: 82002628
Resource Type:
Owner: Private
Architect: unknown
Architectural Style: Colonial revival, Other
Attribute: Georgian Revival
CULTURAL DETAILS
Level of Significance: National
Area of Significance: Art, Architecture
Applicable Criteria: Architecture-Engineering, Person
Period of Significance: 1900-1924, 1875-1899
Significant Year: c 1897, 1924
Associated People: Wood,Grant
Historic Function: Domestic
Historic Sub-Function: Single dwelling
Current Function: Funerary
Current Sub-Function: Mortuary

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