This also isn't geneaology, but some might be interested. The painting "American Gothic" by Grant Wood will only be at the Des Moines Art Center until March 29. There is no charge at the DMAC. Tomorrow, Sunday, 3/1/09, there is also a free screening of the film 'Grapes of Wrath' in the auditorium at 1:30. This is a regionalism collection, including other artists such as Thomas Hart Benton and Jason Pollock. More info below. The rest of the collection stays longer, but 'AG' is only until 3/29/09. It helps to understand what some went through. [Another note: my uncle was born in Nov. 1938, so he was 70 last fall. At his house there is no plastic and he has a very antique, eclectic home. So, we did his birthday 1938 style. Old dishes, simple food, patterned tableclothes, aprons, hats, dresses, newsboy caps, home canned peaches & green beans, white shirts & ties, overalls, talking about news stories like the Dione quintuplets, played period music, antiques, old photos, etc. It was great fun. One cousin dressed like a gun maw, i.e. Bonnie Parker and had a starting pistol in her belt and I brought some cigars. We parked our Model A in the driveway. We have done similar parties before. It's tough to find ways to take picnic food 1930s style - like canning jars and boxes.] After Many Springs: Regionalism, Modernism & the Midwest is the first exhibition to address the artistic battles that were waged simultaneously in New York and the Midwest during the 1930s and the early 1940s. In the midst of the Great Depression, one of the most contentious and fractious artistic debates emerged, one that pitted progressive modernist figures such as Jackson Pollock, Charles Sheeler, and Philip Guston, against artists who sought a revival of tradition. Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood fought against abstraction, believing that American subjects should be conveyed only by straightforward, recognizable imagery. While Benton would become one of the most vocal spokespersons for the movement that became known as Regionalism, his painting, like that of Wood, actually had its origins in abstraction and the Modernist movement. Drawing on the work of artists such as Benton, Curry, and Wood, as well as Margaret Bourke-White, Guston, Dorothea Lange, Pollock, Ben Shahn, Sheeler, and others, After Many Springs aims to rethink and probe such terms as Regionalism and Modernism. While these movements are usually seen as opposites, this exhibition aims to challenge that perception by highlighting the various formal and thematic correspondences that subtly weave them together. Comprised of painting, photography, and documentary film, the works in this exhibition portray not only the Midwestern landscape, but convey complex issues prevalent in the Depression era, including poverty, racism, and ecological devastation. After Many Springs was organized by curator Debra Bricker Balken and Art Center Director Jeff Fleming and is accompanied by a full-color catalogue.