Grant Wood Art Colony: Maura Pilcher

The Grant Wood Art Colony at the University of Iowa partnered with the Historic Artists’ Homes & Studios (HAHS), a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, to host a compelling series of presentations investigating 20th-21st-century artists who, like Grant Wood, extended their practice to creating distinctive homes and studios.

Maura Pilcher, Director of the Grant Wood Art Colony (SAIC MSHP 2006) organized the symposium from start to finish. Lisa Stone (SAIC MSHP 1997), who represented SAIC’s Roger Brown Study Collection for HAHS from 1997 to 2020 and serves on the HAHS Advisory Committee, presented at the symposium. The three-day-long convening explored the intersections of home, creativity, and identity. The prototype was Grant Wood, who renovated a hayloft into a studio and home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and restored and furnished a significant mid-nineteenth-century historic home in Iowa City where he lived and worked.

The convening took place April 8 – 10, 2022, on the campus of the University of Iowa and the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, steward of HAHS member site - the Grant Wood Studio. It was an unplanned but gratifying connection of SAIC HPres alums!

Videos of the stimulating symposium presentations can be found on the Grant Wood Art Colony YouTube Channel and a listing of the schedule can be found on the Grant Wood Art Colony website.