'agriCultural,’ Where Art Intersects with Agriculture
The New Bedford Art Museum exhibit features artwork created by artists who are also farmers, and vice versa, and artists who are significantly inspired by the world of agriculture.
By Don Wilkinson
November 1, 2026
Art and agriculture have been intertwined throughout human history. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics depict farmers plowing fields with bulls, medieval images show reapers and rakers, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “The Harvesters” (1565) and Jean-François Millet’s 19th-century sowers and gleaners are iconic examples. Vincent van Gogh’s “Farmers Planting Potatoes” (1884) and Claude Monet’s “Grainstack, Sun in the Mist” (1891) also explore this connection.
Later artists, like Piet Mondrian’s “Farm at Duivendrecht” (1916), continue this tradition, as do Grant Wood’s famous “American Gothic” (1930) and Andrew Wyeth’s pastoral “Christina’s World” (1948), which, while not directly about agriculture, speaks to themes of longing, resilience, and independence.