Grant Wood
United States, 1892-1942 Seed Time and Harvest, 1930's
Lithograph
Spencer Museum of Art: anonymous gift, 1998.0683
This wagon has a “bangboard” (like the backboard behind a basketball hoop assuring ears lobbed toward the cart would make it in) and a “scoopboard” making it easy to shovel out the corn. (Flory & Fishburn) That the farmer is not making logical use of the scoopboard, but is carrying the ears into the shed a bushel at a time, is explained by the fact that he is carefully selecting the best ears for next year’s seed. The ears under the gable, arranged as nicely as in any county or state fair, are probably a boastful display of the best of the years’s crop. Wood’s print was made about a decade after the 1926 commercial introduction of hybrid seed. Is Wood’s print of 1937 then a reminder of an era of greater autonomy, when farmers controlled their seed stock and the genetic makeup of their crops? (North & Schuster)
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