John Steuart Curry (American, 1897–1946)

Born on a farm near Dunavant, Kansas, John Steuart Curry studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago before training as an illustrator under Harvey Dunn. After studying in Paris in the 1920s, Curry returned to the United States and began drawing inspiration from the rural life and landscapes of his Kansas childhood. His dramatic scenes of farm life, religious gatherings, circuses, storms, and the struggle between man and nature helped establish him as one of the leading figures of American Regionalism, alongside Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood.

Curry gained national recognition with Baptism in Kansas (1928), which was purchased by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and Tornado Over Kansas (1929), which received second prize at the Carnegie International in 1933. In 1936, he became Artist-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin. The following year, he was commissioned to create murals for the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, an ambitious project depicting the history, settlement, and development of his native state. Curry considered the murals, which include his monumental image of abolitionist John Brown, among his greatest achievements.

Curry first exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1924 and went on to exhibit at many of the nation’s leading art institutions, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work is held in major public collections throughout the United States, and his murals can be found in the Kansas Statehouse and federal buildings in Washington, D.C.