Browse by City / State:

My BEST Dentists Journal

The Weekly Top Ten Stories · All Time Top Stories · Today's Journal · Headlines
All Journal Entries
Share

Dr. Byron Henry McKeeby didn’t want to be famous. He shied away from artist Grant Wood’s initial offer to be the male model for “American Gothic,” Wood’s most iconic painting.

Dr Byron McKeeby agreed to model for his friend.  Grant Wood painted him in his dental office in the Cedar Rapids Savings Bank Building (now the Guaranty Bank Building). McKeeby was 62. He donned overalls and held a theater prop pitchfork. The rest of the painting, including the farm woman, which his sister, Nan, posed for, was executed a few blocks away in his studio loft at No. 5 Turner Alley. 

Grant Wood said he’d exaggerate McKeeby’s features so no one would recognize him.  

McKeeby distanced himself from the painting as it took the country by storm. Friends thought it was him and even joked about the pitchfork’s role in his dental procedures, but McKeeby stood firm in his denials.

He was known for his dapper style and affable sense of humor. The real McKeeby was nothing like the dour farmer who challenged the painting’s viewers. 

It was literally national news when McKeeby broke his silence in 1935 and admitted that, yes, he was the farmer with the pitchfork.

As the model for the solemn farmer in Grant Wood's iconic painting, Dr B H Mc Keeby is one of the famous figures in modern portrait art although his name is little known.

He studied dentistry at the University of Iowa, graduating in 1894 and founding his first practice in Winthrop, IA. He moved to Cedar Rapids in 1901 where he established an office which he maintained almost until his death. It was here that Grant Wood, who was one of McKeeby's patients, approached him to model as the father of the farmer's daughter.

"American Gothic" now hangs at the Art Institute of Chicago. And on the museum's website you'll find a little background information introducing you to the iconic 1930 painting:

The impetus for the painting came while Wood was visiting the small town of Eldon in his native Iowa. There he spotted a little wood farmhouse, with a single oversized window, made in a style called Carpenter Gothic.

"I imagined American Gothic people with their faces stretched out long to go with this American Gothic house,” he said. The highly detailed, polished style and the rigid frontality of the two figures were inspired by Flemish Renaissance art, which Wood studied during his travels to Europe between 1920 and 1926. After returning to settle in Iowa, he became increasingly appreciative of midwestern traditions and culture, which he celebrated in works such as this.

In 1930, Wood entered a competition at The Art Institute of Chicago, submitting American Gothic (a reference to the farmhouse’s architectural style), and won the bronze prize, $300, and, even more essential, widespread accolades, as well as whirlwinds of attention with diverse swirling opinions about the artwork’s meaning.

With the Great Depression roaring across America, this work resonated and gave hope to struggling Americans who sought positive symbols from our hard-working heartland. What emerged, explains curator Haskell, was a profound reverence for values of community and self-reliance — fundamental to our national character, showcased in the USA’s small towns and farms. The painting rocketed Wood’s profile to a nearly mythic level.

Grant Wood died of pancreatic cancer in '42, and his sister eventually moved to Northern California, where she became the caretaker of his legacy. She did, after all, owe him a debt. "Grant made a personality out of me," she said. "I would have had a very drab life without American Gothic."

 

(08/14/2020) Views: 1,399
Share


My BEST Dentists Journal Headlines