Man and woman with stern expession stand side-by-side. The man holds a pitch fork.

American Gothic is a painting by Grant Wood in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood's inspiration came from what is now known as the American Gothic House, and his decision to paint the house along with "the kind of people I fancied should live in that house." The painting shows a farmer standing beside a woman that has been interpreted to be either his wife or his daughter.^[2] The figures were modeled by Wood's sister, Nan Wood Graham, and Wood and Graham's dentist. The woman is dressed in a colonial print apron evoking 19th-century Americana, and the man is holding a pitchfork. The plants on the porch of the house are mother-in-law's tongue and beefsteak begonia, which are the same plants as in Wood's 1929 portrait of his mother, Woman with Plants.^[3]

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American Gothic