AN IOWA SURPRISE

[HostDave]

Our 9-day voyages between St. Louis and St. Paul offer a number of idyllic ports of call in the Midwest, a place where people take the time to learn your name and where hospitality is an expectation and not a surprise. Guests can visit the wonders of Hannibal, Missouri, Mark Twain’s boyhood home; creative Red Wing, Minnesota; Victorian and Art Deco La Crosse, Wisconsin; honest Davenport, Iowa; friendly Burlington, Iowa and beguiling Alton, Illinois.

But the one port that never fails to pleasantly surprise our guests is Dubuque, Iowa. Our complimentary Hop-on, Hop-off tour there begins with a drive by the Shot Tower, a seven story structure built to produce lead shots for the civil war. Then we bask in the beauty of light filtered through 101 Tiffany stained glass windows at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church. We also stop at the Fenelon Place Elevator to enjoy a bluff-top view of the Mississippi River and downtown Dubuque. Hop-off at 2nd and Main Street at The Hotel Julien for some shopping, spas, and beauty salons before visiting the oldest and most "grand" of more than 16 legitimate theaters which served the community: the Grand Opera House. Lastly we visit the Dubuque County Jail, which once housed the Notorious Butch Cassidy who was detained there on suspect of a local bank robbery. The Old Jail Museum & Dubuque County Courthouse is an example in Egyptian Revival style and is only one of three of its kind still standing today. But one stop is more popular than the rest combined: the Dubuque Museum of Art.

Even if you’re not an art lover, the highlight of Dubuque for our guests almost always proves to be a tour of the Dubuque Museum of Art which contains the third largest collection of Grant Wood Art in Iowa. If his name doesn’t ring a bell immediately, his most famous work, American Gothic, certainly will. The work, painted in 1930 and depicting a stern-faced farming couple with a pitchfork, has become an American icon and is currently located at the Art Institute of Chicago. When first introduced to the public, art critics lavished praise on the work and it even won a small cash prize. Some of the more high-minded critics, such as Gertrude Stein, decided that Wood was poking fun at the strict morality of America’s rural inhabitants, the rigid figures conveying the inflexibility of the small-minded farmers of the Midwest. Wood was horrified that his work could be so misinterpreted and is said to have meant to portray the resolve, pride and resilience of America’s backbone at a time when the Dust Bowl was destroying the landscape and the Great Depression was destroying the economy.

It would have been rather hypocritical of Wood to have criticized or parodied the stock of farm folk from which he came. Born near Anamosa, Iowa in 1891, he grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He went to art school in Minneapolis and later the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He returned to his roots in 1932 by working with other artists to found the Stone City Art Colony in Iowa as a way of helping starving artists. This was no mere nod to the plight of struggling artists, with the ravages of the Great Depression many artists literally feared they might starve to death. He went on to teach at the University of Iowa’s School of Art until the beginning of World War II. Just two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 51.

Wood’s legacy is far more than the classic American Gothic. Regionalism, an American art movement toward celebrating the cultural and aesthetic beauty of specific areas of the country, most notably rural America, came at a time when art in Europe was becoming increasingly abstract. The literal Midwestern images of Wood and artists such as Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry spoke of an honest and practical sensibility that by grounding the images with a realistic style elevated the art itself.

The Dubuque Museum of Art contains not just a number of works by Grant Wood such as Appraisal and Approaching Storm but also John Steuart Curry’s Elephants. In total, the museum’s permanent collection encompasses more than 2,200 works that focus on 20th century American art “with an emphasis on American Regionalism.” The focus at the Dubuque Museum of Art is to grow their collection with works by artists that have ties to Iowa and, whenever possible, the Dubuque area itself. For example, the museum explains that the collection includes the “complete collection of Edward S. Curtis’ The North American Indian photogravures and texts” as well as nationally famous artists such as Adrian Dornbush and Mauricio Lasansky. Local artists such as Francesco Licciardi, Louise Halliburton, Joseph Walter and Dorothy Rossiter are also represented.

The Dubuque Museum of Art is an unexpected pearl that our guests come across in Dubuque, although it is by no means the only hidden jewel waiting on one of our river cruises. If you book and pay-in-full before July 30, 2014, you can save $2,000 per stateroom on select American Queen voyages in July, August and September.*

*Offer expires July 30, 2014 and is valid on new, paid-in-full bookings only. Save $2,000 per stateroom ($1,000 pp) on these 2014 American Queen voyage dates: 7/08, 7/15, 8/08, 8/15, 8/22, and 9/05. This offer is not valid on American Queen cabin categories G, H and I. Full payment at time of booking is required to redeem these offers-space cannot be held. Offers are based on cabin availability and only while inventory lasts. Offers are not valid on group bookings or existing reservations and cannot be combined with other offers, promotions or discounts. Fares quoted are in U.S. dollars. Cruise fare does not include taxes, port charges, insurance, gratuities, or airfare. Additional terms and conditions may apply - call for details.