John Steuart Curry Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
American, 1897-1946
Born in Dunavant, Kansas on November 14, 1897, John Steuart Curry became the youngest member of the famed "Benton-Wood-Curry trio" of Regional Painters of the early 20th-century American Scene movement. He gained a national reputation for his rural Kansas scenes. The artist focused on people who were down-to-earth, plain spoken, and self-reliant, and who made a living through hard physical labor.
Curry executed murals dealing with land settlement and racial justice, and his works reflecting these themes are in the Capitol Building in Kansas, the University of Wisconsin, the United States Department of the Interior, and the United States Department of Justice.
The artist quit high school and attended the Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design. He transferred to the Art Institute of Chicago.
Curry married Clara Derrick in 1923. He studied in Paris in 1927. He was not impressed by the modernist American painters, many of whom were adopting the 'isms' of French contemporary artists. Curry was determined to paint American subjects without European models and to celebrate patriotism, regional pride, and the common man.
He settled in Westport, Connecticut. In 1928, he painted Baptism in Kansas. The painting was heralded nationally as work of a new American genre. It was exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art biennial where it met critical acclaim. In 1931, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney bought it for her museum. Tornado over Kansas was unveiled in 1929 before the stock market crash and provided the city with the romance of man versus nature theme. In 1933, it received second prize at the Carnegie International Exhibit. In 1930, he had his first one-man exhibition at the Whitney Studio Club. His work of the 1930s contains themes of work, family, and land-- demonstrating the peace, struggle, and perseverance that Curry believed was the essence of American life.
In 1934 he married Kathleen Shepard. The United States government selected him to paint murals for the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior. He was appointed Artist-in-Residence in the College of Agriculture at the University of Wisconsin in 1936.
He was a member of the Art Students' League and won prizes including: Purchase prize, North West Print Maker, fifth annual Exhibition, 1933; second prize, Thirty-first International Exhibition, Carnegie Institute, 1933; gold medal, PAFA, 1941; prize, Artists for Victory Exhibition, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1941. Exhibitions include: “A Celebration of Rural America,” 2007, Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History; “Collective Images: the sketchbooks of John Steuart Curry, 2002, Worcester Art Museum; “Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland,” 2000, Columbus Museum of Art; “The American Century: Art and Culture 1900-2000,” Whitney Museum of American Art; and “John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West,” 1998, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum.
He died in Madison, Wisconsin in 1946.to
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Artist: John Steuart Curry
Untitled (Study for The Aerialists)
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Study for The Aerialists)
Graphite on paper, 1932
Signed lower right in pencil: "John Steuart Curry"
Dated: 1932 in pencil
Exhibited:
Schroeder Romero & Shredder, NYC (label), Master Drawings, Oct. 13, 2011-Nov. 12, 2011 (see photo of label)
Arkansas Arts Center (label), 44th Collector Show & Sale, Nov. 30-December 30, 2012, Offered at $22,000.
(see photo of label)
This drawing is closely related to a painting by Curry entitled The Aerialists, 1932, once in the Erskine Collection, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It is part of a group of preliminary drawings and three finished paintings executed by Curry around 1932 which were based on The Flying Cadonas. The painting The Flying Cadonas is an icon of American art purchased by the Whitney Museum of Art and now on permanent exhibition.
There are other know studies for these works, nos. 199 through 222 and in John Steuart Curry: Rural America, page 32 (Mongerson Wunderlich, Chicago, 1990.
Provenance:
Mrs. Kathleen Curry (artist’s widow), included in the estate schedule of works
Treadway Toomey Auction, Oak Park, Illinois, 2009
Don Joint, New York
An important American Regionalist drawing.
Like Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry was a major American scene painter of the 1930s. His subjects were taken from American history and his most famous mural, The Tragic Prelude...
Category
1930s American Modern John Steuart Curry Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
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John Steuart Curry figurative drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic John Steuart Curry figurative drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by John Steuart Curry in graphite, pencil and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1930s and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large John Steuart Curry figurative drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 17 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Reginald Marsh, Frank Wilcox, and Chaim Gross. John Steuart Curry figurative drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $17,500 and tops out at $17,500, while the average work can sell for $17,500.
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Questions About John Steuart Curry Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
- 1stDibs ExpertMarch 22, 2022John Steuart Curry is known for his paintings that captured daily life in rural areas of Kansas. Curry was born in Dunavant, Kansas, in 1897. He painted two murals for the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka: Kansas Pastoral and Tragic Prelude. You'll find a variety of John Steuart Curry art on 1stDibs.