American Gothic Coloring Page

Grant Wood painted American Gothic in 1930, after spotting a small white farmhouse in Eldon, Iowa. Its upstairs window has a pointed top, like a church window. That building style is called Carpenter Gothic, and it gave the painting its name.

The two serious people weren't a farm couple. Wood asked his sister Nan and his dentist to pose, and he said he pictured a farmer and his daughter, though lots of people assume they're husband and wife. Look for the shape of the pitchfork popping up again in the stitching on the man's overalls. The painting hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago, and it's one of the most copied and joked-about pictures in America.