Focus on this artwork and discuss the Critique.
Critics have commented on the juxtaposition of these women and the mythic painting of George Washington portrayed in one of his wartime feats. Based on Tripp Evans' biography Grant Wood, A Life (2010), Henry Adams in his review says that Wood's painting Daughters of Revolution depicts not women but men: the Founding Fathers as cross-dressing figures, who stand in front of a recreation of Washington Crossing the Delaware. Evans discusses Wood's alleged homosexuality in his book, as well as his fascination with what Adams describes as "changes of gender".In her review of Evans' book, Deborah Solomon thinks that he overstates the case for Wood as a homosexual and pushes this view too much in interpreting his works. She argues that Wood might better be described as asexual. Solomon finds Wood haunted by the dead, saying, "He longed for the company of the dead and tunneled back through time in his enchanting and elegiac paintings. He deserves to be remembered as one of the essential eccentrics of American art." Wood himself called it "A pretty rotten painting. Carried by its subject matter."
cross-dressing homosexuality Founding Fathers Washington Crossing the Delaware George Washington Deborah Solomon Grant Wood