Associated American Aritists

Associated American Artists is a Depression-era enterprise that sold original prints by American artists such as Thomas Benton, John Curry, Reginald Marsh. The AAA was a subscription based group of collectors located across the United States. According to Wood scholar, Tripp Evans "Wood, who had achieved international fame seven years earlier with American Gothic, was widely acknowledged by this date as the primary force behind American Scene or Regionalist painting." 

In the first year that he worked with AAA, Wood created five lithographs. From the 5 lithographs, Sultry Night was the only one produced in conjunction with the large-scale painted version. During this time, Wood's painting carreer had been quite uneventful. So, with the creation of these two works, he hoped for his followers to generate buzz. In 1937, Wood publicly revealed his painting and then shortly after published his lithograph of the same work to the AAA catalogue. To eveyone's surprise, as a result of the lithograph's appearance in AAA, the Postmaster General decided to ban any sales or marketing of the print by mail. This meant the nudity within the lithograph constituted as a form of poronography (an offense only limited to male nudes at the time). As a reaction to this ban, the AAA abruptly cut their run print of 250 impressions to only 100 for Wood's work. Furthermore, there was a restriction on the sale to over-the-counter clients too, according to Evans. 

Sources:

Evans, R. Tripp, “Acquisition Proposal/Prospectus ‘Grant Wood, Sultry Night (1937)’”, (2013).