This series of 4 plates, by Howard Kottler, was made in 1972. It’s a set of 4 porcelain dinner plates, each about 10 inches in diameter.

Each of the 4 plates has a white border, about 1 inch in width, encircling a colored image.

The images are 4 variations on a famous painting of the 1930s, called American Gothic, by Grant Wood.

Each of the images shows the head and shoulders of two figures, both white.

On the right is a man, with bald head and round glasses. He wears a black jacket over beige bib overalls and a collarless shirt. He stares out, his mouth set in a grim straight line.

On the left is a shorter figure, dressed in a brown print apron over a black dress with a white collar and a brooch at the throat. In three of the four plates this shorter figure is a younger woman, also unsmiling, with blonde hair parted in the center and drawn back. The fourth plate’s a bit different – as you’ll hear in a moment. In each of the 4 plates, the man holds a 3-pronged pitchfork, which projects upwards between the two figures. Again, in each of the 4, behind the figures is a white timber-built house. The peak of its roof, over a pointed-arched window, rises between the two heads.

Each of the plates shows different variations on this basic design.

In one of the images, titled Look Alikes, the head of the woman has been replaced by a second, identical bald man in glasses – though the woman’s clothes remain the same.

The other three plates represent different variations on the original artwork. In American Minstrels, the subjects’ faces have been covered by stark white, but the eyes, nose, mouth and hair still remain from the original painting. In another, titled The Silent White Majority, even the mouths have been covered in white. In the fourth, titled Personal Possession, the faces, shoulders and chests of the figures have been replaced with a painted landscape featuring trees and a bridge over water.