Born and raised in Iowa, Grant Wood (1892–1942) became one of America's best-known Regionalists, along with Thomas Hart Benton and John Steuart Curry. He trained in various crafts — woodworking, metalworking, and jewelry making — before attending painting and drawing classes at the Art Institute of Chicago (1913–16). During the 1920s Wood traveled to Europe four times, visiting Paris, Italy, and Germany. The most important lessons he brought back were from Munich, where he was impressed by the contemporary art movement known as the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity), which rejected abstraction in favor of an orderly, realistic art. He also admired the primitive Flemish and German painters, particularly the way in which they depicted mythological or biblical stories in contemporary costumes and settings, making them more relevant to the viewer than strict history paintings. Back in Iowa, Wood applied these ideas to his depictions of ordinary life. His work, like that of the other Regionalist painters, rejected the abstract modernist currents of European art in an effort to forge a realistic style that could depict typically American subjects.