MOUNT VERNON -- "The Man Who Discovered Iowa," a performance by Mel Andringa re-enacting the highlights of Grant Wood's career, will be staged at Cornell College's Kimmel Theatre in Youngker Hall at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8.
Admission is free. Tickets can be reserved
online or by phone at 895-4293.
Andringa, co-executive director of Cedar Rapids' Legion Arts, combines visual spectacle, live music and autobiographical anecdotes in a performance that veers from grand opera to low comedy as it relates the story of Iowa's best-known artist. Andringa re-enacts the high points of Wood's career -- the fame he enjoyed as creator of "American Gothic," his importance as a Midwestern regionalist and his founding of an art colony in Stone City -- and brings to light lesser-known aspects of the artist's life, including several youthful trips Wood made to Europe, his intense devotion to his mother and a short, unhappy marriage.
During the performance, Andringa tells New Testament stories with the aid of a flannel-graph, demonstrates the art of clog dancing and paints on black velvet.
"The Man Who Discovered Iowa" coincides with Cornell's sesquicentennial exhibition, "
Grant Wood and the Iowa Landscape," in the Peter Paul Luce Gallery of McWethy Hall through Nov. 9. The exhibition features works by Wood, Marvin Cone and Lee Allen, a student of Wood's at the University of Iowa, along with landscapes by several contemporary Iowa artists. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.
