When Tillage Begins*:
The Stone City Art Colony and School

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Grant Wood Country - Matsell Bridge County Park
© Linda & Robert Scarth

 The 1930's were both the depths of the Great Depression and the time in which Regionalism in art flourished, especially in the U.S. Midwest. Some of the artists of that time remain almost household names, Grant Wood among them. Some went on to careers in teaching as well as practicing their art.  Untold numbers of their students benefited by the summers their teachers had spent in one of the most picturesque spots in Iowa. Other Colony participants were known only to their families and local communities. 

This electronic work is dedicated to the group of artists who were The Stone City Art Colony and School.  This Art Colony, situated in a small rural eastern Iowa community, was one of the more interesting endeavors of the time. It, like most utopian or idyllic endeavors, was short-lived - two summers. Its contributions, were longer-lived, if little known. It is our hope that those who read about the Colony members included here will contact us with additions, corrections, photographs and information on others connected with the Colony so that this can be a living and growing tribute.

LLS - Editor

When Tillage Begins: The Stone City Art Colony and School
ISBN 0-9718109-1-5
Published online October 2003 by the
Busse Library
Mount Mercy College
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Telephone: 319-368-6465
Fax:319-363-9060
Email: library@mtmercy.edu

Researcher & Author: Kristy Raine
Library Director: Marilyn Murphy
Editor & Web Designer: Linda Scarth
©Busse Library 2003
latest update 21 April 2005

 * from a speech by Daniel Webster

 

 

 

This electronic work in the second published by the Busse Library.  The first - Iowa: A Literary Landscape - is a bibliography of fiction in which Iowa is the setting.