Even those who know the name of the painter of American Gothic are unlikely to know that the soft-spoken artist who painted it was a deeply-closeted gay man. It is one of the most reproduced and parodied artworks in history. Trivia: the models for American Gothic were Grant’s sister and his dentist. In 1930, painter Grant Wood achieved unexpected fame with American Gothic, his painting of a pitchfork-wielding farmer and a stern, black-clad woman posed before a Victorian farmhouse. American Gothic is among this elite group, but few can recall the name of the artist.
There are certain paintings that are recognizable by most everyone, true icons of the art world: Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and Edvard Munch's Scream, for instance.
