Arnold Comes of Age

Arnold Comes of Age is a 1930 oil painting by Grant Wood, created to celebrate the 21st birthday of his studio assistant, Arnold Pyle. As two nude men stand in the sparse background, the painting depicts the adolescent Pyle looking blankly ahead—or instead pensively and longingly—with a butterfly landing on his shirt.
Understood to be homoerotic, owing to the nude men in the background and the butterfly landing on him, the painting stands in contrast to his more traditional and regionalist line of work, including the famous "American Gothic". In particular, the butterfly is said to represent Wood's sexual identity as a site of transformation and beauty, as butterflies were gay symbols at the time of the painting. A deeply affectionate and melancholic piece, it won the Grand Prize at the 1930 Iowa State Fair Art Salon in the landscape category, earning him widespread acclaim throughout the state. Pyle said he only posed four or five times before the piece was completed.
Among his most widely-known pieces of art, it remained hidden from public view for several years as a result of its damage; discolored, cracked, and scarred, the painting had to undergo professional restoration in the mid-1980s before again being shown at the Sheldon Museum of Art in Lincoln, Nebraska. That is where it currently resides, having been purchased by the Nebraska Art Association in 1931.