MOUNT VERNON — Famed Iowa artist Grant Wood, whose first public lecture was made at Cornell College in 1933, will make an encore of sorts Oct. 5 when Cornell unveils its sesquicentennial homecoming exhibition, “Grant Wood and the Iowa Landscape,” in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery in McWethy Hall.
The exhibition, just one of many special events planned in conjunction with Cornell’s ongoing sesquicentennial celebration, runs through Nov. 9 and features works by Wood, Marvin Cone and Lee Allen, a student of Wood’s at the University of Iowa, and local landscapes by former Cornell professors Charles Atherton Cumming, who started Cornell’s art department, Ellen Warren Van Pelt and Henry Albert Mills, Cumming’s successor in Cornell’s art department.
There also will be recent works by 17 contemporary artists who have focused their efforts on the subject of Iowa landscape in a rich cross section of approaches that include painting, drawing, photography and printmaking. These artists are: Richard Colburn, Fred Easker, Pat Edwards, Patrick Ellis, Barbara Fedeler, Helen Grunewald, Gordon Kellenberger, Diane Kunzler, Matthew McConville, Bobbie McKibbin, Virginia Myers, Genie Patrick, John Preston, Jon Stuckenschneider, Steve Tatum, Ellen Wagener and Marcia Wegman.
“One of the reasons we picked Grant Wood as the focus of the exhibition is because his work centered on small-town, rural Iowa, and by doing this he really celebrated a sense of place,” said Susan Coleman, McWethy Hall gallery coordinator. “This seemed to be such an appropriate subject for our exhibition, because Cornell, for the past 150 years, has celebrated the rural setting that has given our college such unique character and created so many opportunities.”
Wood gave what is believed to be his first public lecture at Cornell in 1933 at the invitation of Cornell English professor Clyde “Toppy” Tull’s English Club. Tull’s foster daughter, the late Signi Falk, a 1929 graduate, recalled, “The lights (in the building) went out, emergency candles were set up, and Grant Wood, extremely self-conscious, overcame his stage fright and gave a good talk.” During his lecture, Wood proclaimed, “We are on the verge of developing a real American culture here west of the Mississippi.”
Highlights during the five-week art exhibition include:
All of these events, including the art exhibition, are free and open to the public. Regular gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday.