The Couple with the Pitchfork: American Gothic from Easel to Icon

Renowned art historian Wanda Corn presents her new book “The Couple with the Pitchfork: American Gothic from Easel to Icon,” tracing the remarkable journey of Grant Wood's most famous painting from canvas to cultural phenomenon. Drawing on her expertise in American art, Corn situates Wood's work within a broader national narrative while exploring his deep Iowa roots — including his connection to Iowa State University through the PWAP murals in Parks Library. Engaging, accessible, and interdisciplinary in scope, this lecture offers a fresh look at one of the most recognizable images in American art history and what it continues to reveal about American identity.

Wanda M. Corn, PhD, is an American art and cultural historian and the Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History at Stanford University. At Stanford, she held the university’s first permanent appointment in American art and served as chair of the Department of Art and Art History, Acting Director of the Stanford Museum, and Director of the Stanford Humanities Center. She is the author of The Great American Thing: Modern Art and National Identity, 1915–1935, Women Building History: Public Art at the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern. Her most recent book is The Couple with the Pitchfork: American Gothic from Easel to Icon. Corn has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and has served on the boards of the Wyeth Foundation for American Art and the Terra Foundation for American Art.

This lecture recording can be found on the Available Recordings page approximately two business days after the event and will remain accessible for three weeks.