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Property of a Private New York Collector Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) CORN, c. 1935 Pencil on paper, Grant Wood's personal stationery 4 ½ x 3 inches (image) 9 ½ x 7 ½ inches (paper size) (possible illustration for "Return to Bohemia") Provenance: Private Collection; Private Collection, New York. $35,000-55,000 A letter from Grant Wood expert, Wanda M. Corn to the owner of this work accompanies this lot: "On my visit to you home on February 13, 2009, I saw the Grant Wood pencil drawing (4 ¼ x 3 inches) you have a single ear of corn drawn on a piece of the artist's stationary from No. 5 Turner Alley in Cedar Rapids (9 ¼ x 7 inches). The stationary is of the design and type that I have seen elsewhere in the Grant Wood archives. The drawing has all the hallmarks of Wood's 1930's precisionist drawing style. The ear of corn is very similar to the stylized ear of corn that is in Vegetables, one of Wood's four 1938 lithographs called the Fruits of Iowa. It is centered on the paper giving it a formality that is characteristic of the artist. I was not able to make sense of the handwriting in the lower left of the paper; it does not appear to me to be in Wood's hand. The words "Return to Bohemia" in the lower left suggest that the drawing was going to be used in the official biography of Grant Wood by Park Rinard that was never completed or published. Wood made two drawings called Return to Bohemia that were made as cover images for this same book project that never came into fruition. If the drawing were created for the book, it would be dated c. 1935. I don't have anything definitive to say about the gessoed masonite panel on which the drawing was mounted when you purchased it. Wood painted on gessoed masonite as a matter of course. And he may have adhered this drawing to a panel to strengthen and preserve the paper. Now that the drawing has been separated from the Masonite, the linen texture of the gesso and some strokes of paint can be seen. With best regards, Wanda M. Corn Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History"