The title “American Gothic” was inspired by the American Gothic style home that can be seen in the background, and it’s the house that was the first star of the painting. Woods spotted it on a visit to Iowa and sketched it on the spot – later having the house photographed so that he could reference its architecture.

Posing for the girl was Wood’s sister Nan, and their family dentist took the place on the right to model for the man. There is some ambiguity around whether it is supposed to be husband and wife or a farmer and his spinster daughter for the characters. Woods’ himself remains fairly silent on this point and its been suggested that it was his sister who earnestly pushed for the father / daughter angle after being embarrassed to be portrayed as the wife of a man who is clearly much older than her.

It wasn’t until the Great Depression that people started to take the painting a bit more seriously. It came to represent – not the satirical joke on rural life as previously proclaimed – but a celebration of American virtue and the “Pioneer spirit” that Americans felt embodied them at that time. However, it was also this seriousness of “Authentic Americans” that first gave rise to the parodies – The first instance came from a photographer in 1942 who photographed a cleaning woman holding a broom in front of an American flag and called it American Gothic. Since then, there have been countless parodies in movies, music, art and even cartoons.

The house itself still remains the star of the show with people today flocking to get their own interpretation of an American Gothic pose out the front.

On the left side of the portrait sits Frida with her dress torn open to reveal a broken and bleeding heart, signifying the pain she was experiencing from Diego rejecting her. In her hand, she holds a pair of bloody scissors. On the right side of the portrait, the viewer sees Frida before the divorce–when Rivera still loved her. Her heart is whole and her face shows no distress. In her hand, she holds a tiny portrait of Rivera.

Interestingly, the real-life tiny portrait featured in this painting was later discovered amongst Frida’s belongings and can now be seen at her art museum in Mexico called the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico.

Still looking at the painting, you can observe a lot of small details that help further tell the story of Frida’s suffering. Both versions of Frida sit on one bench, holding hands in front of a dark, stormy backdrop. The main artery runs between them, connecting both of their hearts together. On the left, it can be seen running down in front of Frida to the scissors in her hand where she has cut it off, and is now in danger of bleeding out.

When Frida first painted this piece, she initially wrote in her diary that it was inspired by an imaginary friend she had as a child. It was only much later on, perhaps after she had somewhat recovered from the emotional struggle of the divorce, that she admitted her divorce is what inspired her to create it. While it is now a highly acclaimed work, she only received about $1,000 for it (4,000 Pesos) while she was alive. It was sold to Mexico City’s National Institute of Fine Arts.

This painting marked the most expensive painting she ever sold during her lifetime, but since then, many of her works have went on to become well-loved within the art community. Her paintings explore topics such as gender, race, class, and identity, and since she used naïve folk art style while drawing on Mexican popular culture of the time, her style remains highly admired to this day.