Academics and artists have never settled on a straightforward interpretation of Iowa painter Grant Wood.

But deconstructing the artist could raise some eyebrows as scholars unearth new revelations about his life and art.

'Issues of sexuality or alcoholism are never straight forward, with (Wood) you have both,' said Prof. Henry Adams.

'If we accept he was either gay or confused or just an emotionally wound up individual, we can approach his work in a whole new way.' Adams, a professor of art history and art at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland was one of four Wood scholars who spoke Saturday Morning at the University of Iowa-sponsored Grant Wood's World symposium.

Adams and others suggested that Wood and his works are too often seen as idyllic symbols of wholesome, pious, Midwestern values. For Adams and fellow scholars, that couldn't be further from the truth.

'His unconventional lifestyle in a small town is at odds with the models and mores of when and where he lived,' Adams said. 'And it lends his art a greater richness and complexity.' Adams, an established scholar and critic of the regionalist art movement that includes Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, points out that since Wood has been dead for more than 60 years, such revelations must be reached through clues and secondary sources.

'Benton and his students believed Wood was gay,' Adams said. Adams also said the painter was capable of drinking multiple bottles of scotch in one sitting. 'By the end of his career, Wood was a heavy drinker.' After Wood was hired by the UI in 1934, just four years after the success of 'American Gothic,' the Cedar Rapids painter met stiff criticism from the established members of the school's art program for a host of reasons, his suspect sexuality one of them.

Records recovered from Virgil Hancher, then the UI president, show that six faculty members accused Wood of having 'gay relations' with his assistant. Ultimately, the infighting prompted Wood to take a leave of absence from the university in 1940. He died two years later from liver cancer.

Tripp Evans, a professor of art history at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, said since first-generation regionalist critics tiptoed around Wood's lifestyle and his personal struggles, Wood remains a figure that should be reexamined.

'At best, these revelations are a way to expand what we know about him, not remove what we know,' Evans said.

'Wood's paintings are like an advent calender ... there's always something behind the paper door.'