Here’s how Cedar Rapids schools came to own Grant Wood, other known artists, work

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CEDAR RAPIDS — As a teacher at McKinley Junior High in Cedar Rapids in the 1920s, Grant Wood — an artist known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest — created a bench for misbehaving students to sit outside the principal’s office.

The bench — intended as a humorous take on a traditional church mourner’s bench — is carved with the phrase “The way of the transgressor is hard.”

“It’s my understanding it was well used,” said Sean Ulmer, executive director of the Museum of Art where the bench is on loan from the Cedar Rapids Community School District.

“I always thought it was clever and witty,” said Ranelle Knight-Lueth, who is working at the University of Iowa creating the first