American prints

The San Jose Museum of Art has a nice collection of them, many from the 1930s– some by artists you know, and some by ones you don't. The best of the lot is by one you know: Grant Wood's "Tree Planting Group" (1937). Beautiful in its composition and pointillism, American Gothic in its tone...





Thomas Hart Benton's "Cradling Wheat" (1939) is also eye-catching... a touch of Hokusai?





New to me was Leon Gilmour, a Latvian immigrant who spent much of life out west. His prints of heroic, brawny workers are impressive, but smack of socialist realism... his flowers and trees share the same energy, with less polemic...