In Paper Dolls, one of many trompe-l’oeil designs by William Ward Beecher, blue paper cut-outs join at the hands and feet in the form of a child’s paper chain. The figures cast shadows on the beige ground behind them, so that they appear to hover above the surface. The February 17, 1953 issue of Women’s...

Grant Wood is best known for his iconic 1930 painting, “American Gothic,” in which an unsmiling and oddly flattened couple, rather humorous in their solemnity, pose with a pitchfork in front of their farmhouse. Wood was a great proponent of the American regionalist movement, made up of rural, mostly Midwestern artists who tended to paint...