Tame Flowers

In 1939, Wood created a series of four lithographic still-lives depicting fruits, vegetables, wild flowers, and "tame flowers." The series is rooted in the work of the 19th-century lithographers Currier & Ives, and Wood wanted his prints hand-colored like his forebears' were. Though his publisher urged him to color the prints himself, Wood refused, saying that he preferred  to follow the 19th-century precident of employing a separate craftsperson to do the coloring. The black and white prints were sent to California, where Nan Wood Graham, the artist's sister, undertook the coloring.