Major Gift for Grant Wood's Studio
Cedar Rapids, Iowa— The Cedar Rapids Museum of Art (CRMA) has received a major grant from the Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Esther and Robert Armstrong Charitable Trust for the benefit of
Grant Wood Studio, which it has owned since 2002. The $750,000 grant will be used to endow the ongoing operating expenses of the Studio, develop new educational programs, and promote the Studio more widely as a tourism destination. The grant also makes it possible for the Museum to eliminate the admission fee that was previously charged.
The Studio is located in the second floor loft of a small carriage house that was built in the 1890s for George B. Douglas, whose father helped establish the Quaker Oats company. In 1924, the Douglas Mansion was converted into a funeral parlor by George Turner, Grant Wood’s primary patron. In the same year, Wood was given the carriage house loft to convert into a studio and residence, and he worked and lived there until 1935. In honor of his patron, Wood christened the building with the fictional address of 5 Turner Alley. The property, only three blocks from the Museum of Art, is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Wood designed and hand-built the Studio himself, making it one of very few artists’ studios in America so intimately connected with the artist. The compact space of less than 1,000 square feet reflects his roots in the arts and crafts movement. The Studio has sharply angled ceilings, exposed wooden beams, simple wooden floors, textured plaster walls, and built-in niches for flowers, art, and artifacts. A storage room, a tiny kitchen, and the bathroom take up less than a quarter of the total space, leaving the remaining area as a flexible space for living, entertaining, and painting. Wood’s paintings and tools of the trade were stored behind a wall that could be rolled out on hidden wheels to reveal storage racks. Rollaway beds could be pulled out from beneath a pair of storage cupboards to convert the studio into a bedroom.
The Studio is also notable for the fact that Wood created nearly all of his most famous works of art while working here, including American Gothic. Wood’s biographer R. Tripp Evans refers to the “extraordinary productivity” of the years at 5 Turner Alley as a period of happiness and creativity unequaled by any other time in Wood’s life.
Robert Armstrong, who died in 1990, was chairman of the former Armstrong’s department store in downtown Cedar Rapids and served on the Museum’s Board of Trustees during the 1980s. Esther, who died in 2002, and Robert had strong personal connections with Grant Wood. Perhaps most importantly, they commissioned him to help design their Cedar Rapids home known as Pleasant Hill, which is now owned by Coe College.
“This generous grant will guarantee that the Museum has the funds to maintain the Studio and Visitor Center in perpetuity,” said CRMA Executive Director, Terry Pitts. “It will also let us develop engaging educational programs and activities that will occur on the property. This is one of the most evocative artist’s studios I’ve ever seen, and we’re excited by the prospect that people will now be able to visit without any admission fee whatsoever.”
In recognition of this grant, the Visitor Center, located on the ground floor of the Studio building, will be named the Armstrong Visitor Center, after Esther and Robert Armstrong.
The Grant Wood Studio and Armstrong Visitor Center, located at 810 Second Avenue SE, Cedar Rapids, are closed for the winter and are scheduled to reopen on April 2, 2011. Plans for a dedication ceremony of the Armstrong Visitor Center will be announced in March. There is additional information about the Studio and Grant Wood on the Museum of Art’s website at www.crma.org.
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The mission of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art is to excite, engage and educate our community and visitors through our collection, exhibitions and programs. The Museum’s collection contains more than 5,600 works of art by hundreds of artists, including the world's largest collection of works by Grant Wood. For more information on exhibitions or related programs call the Museum at 319.366.7503 or visit the Museum's web site at www.crma.org. Museum Hours: noon to 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday; noon to 8:00 p.m. on Thursday; 10:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. on Saturday.