John Steuart Curry Art
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.(Biography provided by David Barnett Gallery)
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Artist: John Steuart Curry
Rubenesque nude woman . full figure Nude Regionalism - "Hilda Nellis"
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Miami, FL
Plump or fleshy and voluptuous nude... you can describe it as you see it. Signed, titled and dated lower left: John Steuart Curry / 1934 "Hilda Nellis",
John Steuart Curry is best ...
Category
1930s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Oil
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 (la...
Category
1930s American Modern John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Graphite
'Sketching Wisconsin' original oil painting, Signed
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Milwaukee, WI
John Steuart Curry
"Sketching Wisconsin," 1946
oil on canvas
31.13 x 28 inches, canvas
39.75 x 36.75 x 2.5 inches, frame
Signed and dated lower right
Overall excellent condition
Presented in a 24-karat gold leaf hand-carved wood frame
John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was an American regionalist painter active during the Great Depression and into World War II. He was born in Kansas on his family’s farm but went on to study art in Chicago, Paris and New York as young man. In Paris, he was exposed to the work of masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David. As he matured, his work showed the influence of these masters, especially in his compositional decisions. Like the two other Midwestern regionalist artists that are most often grouped with him, Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), Curry was interested in representational works containing distinctly American subject matter. This was contrary to the popular art at the time, which was moving closer and closer to abstraction and individual expression.
Sketching Wisconsin is an oil painting completed in 1946, the last year of John Steuart Curry’s life, during which time he was the artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The painting is significant in Curry’s body of work both as a very revealing self-portrait, and as a landscape that clearly and sensitively depicts the scenery of southern Wisconsin near Madison. It is also a portrait of the artist’s second wife, Kathleen Gould Curry, and is unique in that it contains a ‘picture within a picture,’ a compositional element that many early painting masters used to draw the eye of the viewer. This particular artwork adds a new twist to this theme: Curry’s wife is creating essentially the same painting the viewer is looking at when viewing Sketching Wisconsin.
The triangular composition of the figures in the foreground immediately brings focus to a younger Curry, whose head penetrates the horizon line and whose gaze looks out towards the viewer. The eye then moves down to Mrs. Curry, who, seated on a folding stool and with her hand raised to paint the canvas on the easel before her, anchors the triangular composition. The shape is repeated in the legs of the stool and the easel. Behind the two figures, stripes of furrowed fields fall away gently down the hillside to a farmstead and small lake below. Beyond the lake, patches of field and forest rise and fall into the distance, and eventually give way to blue hills.
Here, Curry has subverted the traditional artist’s self-portrait by portraying himself as a farmer first and an artist second. He rejects what he sees as an elitist art world of the East Coast and Europe. In this self-portrait he depicts himself without any pretense or the instruments of his profession and with a red tractor standing in the field behind him as if he was taking a break from the field work. Here, Curry’s wife symbolizes John Steuart Curry’s identity as an artist. Compared with a self-portrait of the artist completed a decade earlier, this work shows a marked departure from how the artist previously presented and viewed himself. In the earlier portrait, Curry depicted himself in the studio with brushes in hand, and with some of his more recognizable and successful canvases behind him. But in Sketching Wisconsin, Curry has taken himself out of the studio and into the field, indicating a shift in the artist’s self-conception.
Sketching Wisconsin’s rural subject also expresses Curry’s populist ideals, that art could be relevant to anyone. This followed the broad educational objectives of UW’s artist-in-residence program. Curry was appointed to his position at the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and was the first person to hold any such position in the country, the purpose of which was to serve as an educational resource to the people of the state. He embraced his role at the University with zeal and not only opened the doors of his campus studio in the School of Agriculture to the community, but also spent a great deal of time traveling around the state of Wisconsin to visit rural artists who could benefit from his expertise. It was during his ten years in the program that Curry was able to put into practice his belief that art should be meaningful to the rural populace. However, during this time he also struggled with public criticism, as the dominant forces of the art market were moving away from representation. Perhaps it was Curry’s desire for public acceptance during the latter part of his career that caused him to portray himself as an Everyman in Sketching Wisconsin.
Beyond its importance as a portrait of the artist, Sketching Wisconsin is also a detailed and sensitive landscape that shows us Curry’s deep personal connection to his environment. The landscape here can be compared to Wisconsin Landscape of 1938-39 (the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which presents a similar tableau of rolling hills with a patchwork of fields. Like Wisconsin Landscape, this is an incredibly detailed and expressive depiction of a place close to the artist’s heart. This expressive landscape is certainly the result of many hours spent sketching people, animals, weather conditions and topography of Wisconsin as Curry traveled around the state. The backdrop of undulating hills and the sweeping horizon, and the emotions evoked by it, are emphatically recognizable as the ‘driftless’ area of south-central Wisconsin. But while the Metropolitan’s Wisconsin Landscape conveys a sense of uncertainty or foreboding with its dramatic spring cloudscape and alternating bands of light and dark, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm and reflective mood. The colors of the foliage indicate that it is late summer and Curry seems to look out at the viewer approvingly, as if satisfied with the fertile ground surrounding him.
The landscape in Sketching Wisconsin is also revealing of what became one of Curry’s passions while artist-in-residence at UW’s School of Agriculture – soil conservation. When Curry was a child in Kansas, he saw his father almost lose his farm and its soil to the erosion of The Dust Bowl. Therefore, he was very enthusiastic about ideas from UW’s School of Agriculture on soil conservation methods being used on Wisconsin farms. In Sketching Wisconsin, we see evidence of crop rotation methods in the terraced stripes of fields leading down the hillside away from the Curry’s and in how they alternate between cultivated and fallow fields.
Overall, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm, reflective, and comfortably pastoral atmosphere, and the perceived shift in Curry’s self-image that is evident in the portrait is a positive one. After his rise to favor in the art world in the 1930’s, and then rejection from it due to the strong beliefs presented in his art, Curry is satisfied and proud to be farmer in this self-portrait. Curry suffered from high blood...
Category
1940s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Study for the Mural "Westward Movement"
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Study for the Mural "Westward Movement"
Graphite, watercolor, gouache and paint on paper, 1936
Signed in pencil lower center (see photo)
A study leading up to his mural Justice of th...
Category
1930s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Gouache
Study for the Mural "Westward Movement"
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Study for the Mural "Westward Movement"
Graphite, watercolor, gouache and paint on paper, 1936
Signed in pencil lower center (see photo)
A study leading up to his mural Justice of th...
Category
1930s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Gouache
Wisconsin Twilight
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Missouri, MO
John Steuart Curry (American, 1897-1946)
Wisconsin Twilight, 1934
Signed Lower Left
Gold Leafed Frame with Silk Mat and Gold Leafed Fillet
29 x 36.5 inches
41 x 46.5 inches with frame
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 national reputation for his Kansas rural scenes of people terrorized by natural phenomena such as tornadoes, drab farm-house living conditions, religious gatherings such as prayer meeting and baptisms, and spirited animals who got out of control. A good example of his weather-related painting was Tornado Over Kansas, 1929, in the collection of the Muskegon Museum of Art in Muskegon, Michigan. In this scene, a family scurries for shelter, trying to outrun a funnel cloud headed for their home. The mother carries her baby, and the children rescue pets and toys. It was later said that Curry never directly experienced a tornado but had many scares from them as a child when his family, faced with frightening skies, made frequent trips to their fruit cellar. In 1933, Tornado Over Kansas received second prize at the Carnegie International Exhibit.
He was especially focused on people who were down-to-earth, plain spoken and who were self reliantly making a living through hard physical labor challenged by harsh weather. In many of his paintings, he showed his disdain for racial discrimination and hatred, something he believed was psychologically poisonous. He did many murals dealing with land settlement and these themes of racial justice, and his, reflecting these themes, murals are in the Capitol Building in Kansas, the University of Wisconsin, Department of the Interior, and Department of Justice in Washington D.C.
Curry was a descendant of many generations of farmers, whose American ancestors originally were from Scotland. Some of them immigrated to South Carolina, and later followed "the line of the frontier into the Mississippi Valley."
The first born of five children, Curry said of his childhood: "I was raised on hard work and the shorter catechism---Up at four o'clock the year round, doing half a day's work before we rode to town on horseback to our lessons."
From a young age, he was constantly drawing, an activity encouraged by his mother, who arranged art lessons for him from age 12. She also gave him his first glimpse of the Old Master painters through reproductions of their work she had collected on her honeymoon.
Never of the studious nature, Curry quit the county high school in Winchester, Kansas and spent that summer as a railroad section-hand. His earnings provided him with enough money to buy a suit of clothes so that he could go to Kansas City and attend the Art Institute. A month later he moved to the Art Institute of Chicago, and remained there for two years, supporting himself by sweeping floors and acting as a bus-boy in the cafeteria. Upon America's declaration of war, Curry went to training camp, only to be sent home when it was discovered that he was still under age. In 1918 he enrolled at Geneva College, played football for two seasons, and spent the following five years training to earn his money as an illustrator of "blood-and-thunder" scenes for a popular western story magazine. In this capacity, he worked for illustrator Harvey Dunn in New Jersey from 1919 to 1926. He married and then persuaded art patron Seward Prosser to loan him $1000. 00,, which he used for one year of study in Paris in 1927.
The year in Europe, which included study at the Academy Julian, reinforced his independent nature. He was much more impressed by the paintings of Rembrandt and Rubens than by the modernist American painters, many whom were adopting the 'isms' of abstract styles of French contemporary artists such as Pablo Picasso's Cubism and Max Ernst's Surrealism. Curry determined to paint American subjects without European models and to celebrate American patriotism and regional pride rather than lofty, remote ideals espoused by the academics.
He returned to America penniless, and settling in Westport, Connecticut, swore that he would turn out a worthwhile picture or give up painting entirely. There in 1928 from memory he painted his first picture that became famous, Baptism in Kansas. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney bought it for her museum and subsidized him for two years at $50 a week.
Baptism in Kansas was heralded nationally as work of a new American genre, but fellow Kansans were not impressed until much later when they realized the scope of his recognition. Purchased by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, one of his key benefactors, Baptism launched his career as a regionalist. In 1930, he had his first one-man exhibition, held at the Whitney Studio Club, and was received enthusiastically by critics.
Although he lived primarily in the East, he returned often to Kansas where he stayed at his parents' farm and sketched rural-life scenes. His first wife died, and he gave up his studio in Westport, and secluded himself in a drab New York City studio. He taught at the Cooper Union and the Art Students' League, and held a show of circus studies after touring New England with Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Circus. This tour and the resulting circus sketches and watercolors were inspired from his attendance in Kansas at many rural county fairs. Reportedly the circus people said they liked Curry but "quibbled over minor technical errors in his series of circus paintings."
In 1934 he married Kathleen Shepard, returned to Westport, recovered his old enthusiasm, and painted one of his most famous paintings, Line Storm. Westport beginning to appreciate him, commissioned him to do a double mural for the local high school. Additionally, the United States government selected him to paint murals for the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior buildings in Washington, D.C. He was appointed Artist-in-Residence in the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin, in 1936. At $4,000 a year he had his studio on the campus, where he could mingle with students, but he conducted no formal classes.
Curry also traveled occasionally to Arizona where he visited his parents who had a second home there and spent their winters. The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art in Manhattan, Kansas, is the repository of the Curry archives including many paintings. According to Bill North, the Museum's Senior Curator, Curry "did produce a number of paintings and watercolors with Arizona subjects, some, certainly prior to 1940. Relatively little is known about this aspect of his life and work. I assume that many, if not all of Curry's Arizona paintings...
Category
1930s Other Art Style John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Paper, Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite
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The artist was born: Kansas City MO, 1942
Education: Art Students League, New York, NY
Cornell University
Brooklyn Museum School
San Francisco Art Institute, M.F.A. 1969
Awards and Commissions
N.E.A. Fellowship Grant- 1989
California Supreme Court Mural Commission- 1998
Las Vegas Federal Courthouse Commission, G.S.A.-1998
Teaching
1989-90: San Francisco State University
1975: San Francisco Art Institute Realism Seminar
1974-76: Academy of Art College, San Francisco, CA
1973-74, 1976: California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA
1971-72: California State University, Hayward, CA
One Man Exhibitions
2015: Willard Dixon Portraits College of Marin Fine Art Gallery, Kentfield
2014: SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
2008: SFMOMA Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA.
2005: Fischbach Gallery, NYC,NY
2005: Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2004: Fischbach Gallery, NYC, NY.
2002: Earl McGrath Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2002: Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
2001: Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2000: Fischbach Gallery, NYC , NY
2000: Hearst Art Gallery, St. Mary’s College, Moraga, CA
1998: Hackett Freedman Gallery, SF, CA
1997: Tatistcheff/Rogers Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1996, 1995: Contemporary Realist Gallery (now Hackett Freedman Gallery)
1994: Fischbach Gallery
1993: Contemporary Realist Gallery
1992: Fischbach Gallery
1991: Earl McGrath Gallery, 454 North, Los Angeles, CA
1990: Fischbach Gallery
1989: William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1988: Gallery 454 North, Los Angeles, CA
1987: Fischbach Gallery
1987: Gallery 454 North
1986: William Sawyer Gallery
1985: Fischbach Gallery
1984: Harris Gallery, Houston, Tx
1984: William Sawyer Gallery
1983, 1982: Fischbach Gallery
1981: William Sawyer Gallery
1980,1979: Tortue Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1976, 1975: William Sawyer Gallery
1973, 1972: William Sawyer Gallery
Selected Group Exhibitions
2017: SHIFT / with Elizabeth Barlow, Kim Frohsin, Erin Parrish, Irene Zweig, Andra Norris Gallery, Burlingame, CA
2015: REAL with Elizabeth Barlow Gallerie Citi, Burlingame, CA.
2014: Stillness and Activity / A father and daughter exhibition, Gallerie Citi, Burlingame, CA.
2013: Outwin Boocher Portrait Competition 2013 Exhibition” Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Hey Everybody / Portraits, Diablo Valley College
2012: Artistic Visions of the Golden Gate Bridge”, George Krevsky Gallery, S.F., CA.
Introduction Two/ Gallerie Citi, Burlingame, CA.
2011: California: A Landscape of Dreams/ Fresno Art Museum
2010: Self Portrait Invitational/ Julie Nester Gallery, Park City UT
2009: On Beauty /I. Wolk Gallery, St. Helena, CA.
2008: At Water’s Edge / I. Wolk Gallery, St. Helena, CA.
2007: San Francisco Scenes/ George Krevsky Gallery, S.F., CA
Ten Years- A Retrospective/ Dolby Chadwick Gallery, S.F., CA.
2006: Our Planet, Our Home/ SFMOMA Artists Gallery, S.F. CA
2005: 2005 Spring Group Show/ Earl McGrath Gallery, L.A., CA
2002: H2O’02, Paintings of Water/ Fischbach Gallery, NYC
Scene in Oakland 1852-2002 Oakland Museum Oakland, CA
The Garden/ Art Foundry Gallery, Sacramento, CA
The Moving Still Life/ Fischbach Gallery, New York, NY
Bay Area Printmakers/ works from Trillium Press,
Art Foundry Gallery, Sacramento, CA
California Landscape Paintings/ College of Marin Art Gallery, Kentfield, CA
Bay Area Printmakers/ SF Museum of Modern Art/Artists Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Visions: Northern California/ Bank of America, San Francisco, CA
2001: Opening Exhibit: Group Show, Fischbach Gallery, NY, NY
2000: Hackett Freedman Gallery Artists/ Shasta College Art Gallery, Redding, Ca
1999: Homage to the Art Institute, Artists Who Transformed American
Culture, Hackett Freedman Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1999: What is Art For? What are Museums For? What are You For? curated Curated for the Oakland Museum by William T. Wiley & Mary Hull Webster, Oakland, CA
1998: Paintings of Marin County Past and Present/ The North Point Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1997: 10th Anniversary Exhibition/ Hackett Freedman Gallery, S.F., CA
1996: Rediscovering the Landscape of the Americas/ Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM (traveling exhibition)
Contemporary American Realist Painters/ Halls Crown Center Gallery, Kansas City, MO
1996: Foundation for the Future: Celebrating 125 Years at the San Francisco Art Institute/ One Bush St., S.F., CA
1996: New Work by Selected Gallery Artists, Tatistcheff/Rogers Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Flower Paintings/ Contemporary Realist Gallery, S.F., CA
1995: Facing Eden: 100 Years of Landscape Art in the Bay Area / De Young Museum, S.F., CA
Contemporary Still Life Painting/ David Klein Gallery, Birmingham, MI
1994: Still Life/ Fischbach Gallery, New York City, NY
New Bay Area Painting/ Contemporary Realist Gallery, S.F., CA
A Room with a View/ The North Point Gallery, S.F., CA
1993: Bay Area Painting/ Contemporary Realist Gallery, S.F., CA
Vanishing Point: A Look at Contemporary Landscape Painting”,
Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA
Tribute/ William Sawyer Gallery, S.F., CA
Revolution: Into the 2nd Century at the San Francisco Art Institute, One Market Plaza, S.F., CA
Contemporary Realism: Central and Northern California Landscapes/ Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA
The Artist as Native: Reinventing Regionalism/ a traveling exhibition curated by Alan Gussow and Babcock Galleries, N.Y., NY
1992: A Day in the Country, California Landscape Painting / I. Wolk Gallery, St. Helena, CA
West Art and the Law/ Weat Publishing Co., St. Paul, MN(traveling ex.) The New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
In Support of Contemporary Bay Area Artists / One Market Plaza, S.F., CA
1991: The Landscape in 20th-Century American Art: Selections from the
Metropolitan Museum of Art/ New York, NY, National Traveling Exhibit
1990: Contemporary Landscapes/ 21st Anniversary Exhibition
Tortue Gallery, Los Angeles, CA.
1990: New Bay Area Painting Contemporary Realist Gallery, S.F., CA
1989: The Modern Pastoral/ Robert Scholekopf Gallery, New York, NY
1988: Images of the Land/ William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1988: Ten Artists from the William Sawyer Gallery / Shasta College Gallery, Redding CA
Works on Paper/ William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1987: The Contemporary American Landscape/ Swain Gallery, NJ
1986: Landscape, Seascape, Cityscape/ Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
1985: The Bay Area Seen/ Bay Area Regionalists Show, Hall of Flowers, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
Large Scale/ Harris Gallery, Houston, TX
A City Collects/ Transamerica Pyramid, San Francisco, CA
American Realism/ William Sawyer Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1984: San Francisco Bay Area Painting/ curated by George Neubert for the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Lincoln, NE
American Landscape Painting/ California State University, L.A. CA
Western Landscape Painters/ The Museum of the West, Houston, TX
The Urban Landscape / One Market Plaza, San Francisco, CA
1982: Collectors Gallery 16/ McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, TX
Thirty Approaches to Realism/ William Sawyer Gallery, S.F., CA
1981: Views of California Past and Present/ Triton Museum, Santa Clara, CA
Landscapes/ Harris Gallery, Houston, TX
110th Anniversary S.F. Art Institute Alumni Group Show/
William Sawyer Gallery, S.F., CA
1980: Realism/ Walnut Creek Civic Arts Gallery, Walnut Creek, CA
1979: Bay Area Artists Exhibition/Sale/ Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA
Omnium Gatherum/ Tortue Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
California Viewpoints/ Sunne Savage Gallery, Boston, MA
1978: New Work/ Mills College Art Gallery, Oakland, CA
Images of the Land/ William Sawyer Gallery, S.F., CA
1977: Contemporary California Artists/ Marshall-Meyers Gallery
Alternative to the Whitney Annual/ James Yu Gallery, N. Y, N.Y.
San Francisco Art Festival/ ( Airport Competition Purchase Prize)
1977: Eight Young Americans/ Montclair Museum of Art, Montclair,NJ
1976: Three From California/ Francine Sedars Gallery, Seattle, WA
Faculty Show/ California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA
1975: Realism in Painting and Ceramics/ Helen Euphrat Gallery,
De Anza College, Cupertino, CA
1975: A Tribute to the Art Institute/ Hansen Fuller Gallery, S.F., CA
California Artists/ Utah Museum of Fine Art, Salt Lake City, UT
1974: Our Land, Our Sky, Our Water/ by Alfred Frankenstein Expo 74, Spokane, WA
A Sense of Place/ curated by Alan Gussow for the Joslyn Museum, Omaha, NE
The Discovery Gallery, Montclair, N.J.
1973: College of Marin Gallery, Kentfield, CA
California Artists/ Kaiser Center, Oakland, CA
1972: Visiting Artists/ California State University, Hayward, CA
1970: Drawing Invitational/ Emanuel Walter Gallery,
San Francisco Art Institute, S.F., CA
1970: San Francisco Art Institute Centennial Exhibition,
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, S.F., CA
1967: Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art Annual,
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, S.F., CA
1966: California Landscape Painters/ San Francisco Art Institute, S.F. CA.
Selected Collections
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Oakland Museum
The Utah Museum of Fine Art
San Francisco Art Commission
Shaklee Corporation
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, San Francisco, CA
Kemper Insurance Company, Long Grove, Il
Morrison and Foerester, San Francisco, CA
SSI Container Corporation, San Francisco, CA
San Francisco International Airport
Oxford Petroleum Company, Houston,TX
California First Bank, San Francisco, CA
United Pipeline, Houston, TX
Security Pacific National Bank, S.F., CA
Crocker Bank, Los Angeles, CA
Visa Corporation, San Francisco, CA
Atlantic Richfield Corporation
Shell Oil, Houston, TX
First National Bank of Seattle
RREEF Corporation, San Francisco, CA
Texas Heritage Society
Genstar Corporation, San Francisco, CA
Sohio Corporation
Skidmore Owings and Merrill, N.Y.C., NY
Chemical Bank, NY
Swissre Corporation, NY
The Insurance Company of North America
First National Bank of Midland, Texas
Commerce Bank
AMA Headquarters, Washington, DC
Hughes Tool, Houston, TX
ATT, NY
Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, San Francisco, CA
IBM Corporation, San Jose, CA
Northern Trust Company, Chicago, IL
Smith Kline and French Corp., Philadelphia, PA
Wells Fargo Bank, San Francisco, CA
Republic National Bank
Chevron
Trammel Crow Company, Dallas, CA
U.S. Insurance Group, N.J.
Southwestern Bell Corp., MO
Union Bank
Pacific Bell
United States Trust Company, NY
The United Bank of Denver, CO
Cigna Corp., Philadelphia, PA
Atlantic Richfield Corp., Los Angeles, CA
Show, Pittman, Pots and Trobridge, Washington, DC
San Francisco Zen Center
Hughes Aircraft Co. Los Angeles, CA
Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M), St. Paul, MN
Bank of America, NY
Commerce Bancshares, Inc., Kansas City,MO
Robinson Humphrey/American Express, Atlanta, GA
Merrill Lynch, San Francisco, CA
Goldman Sachs, NY
Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., NY
Victoria Bank and Trust, Victoria, TX
NYNEX, NY
Coca Cola, U.S.A., Atlanta, GA
TransAmerica Corporation
Pacific Telesis Group
Brobeck, Phleger, & Harrison Exxon Corporation
U.S. Trust
Selected Private Collections
Estate of Ahmet Ertegun, New York, NY Mr. Harrison Ford, Los Angeles, CA
Estate of Irving Lazarr, Los Angeles, Ca
Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Holzer, New York, NY
Mr. and Mrs. Peter Asher, Los Angeles, CA
Mr. John Irvin, London, England Ms. Joan Didion, New York , NY
Ms. Sabrina Guinness, London, Eng.
Mr. and Mrs. Austin Hills, San Francisco, CA
Mr. and Mrs. Peter Duchin
Ms. Linda Ronstadt
Ms. Faye Dunaway
Mr . Peter Morton
Mrs H.J. Heinze, New York, NY
Mr. Rupert Lowenstein
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Emery, San Francisco, CA
Mr. Earl Mc Grath, New York, NY
Mr. Nat Weiss, New York, NY
Mr. Luca Barilla
Mr. Bruce Schnietzer, New York, NY
Dr. and Mrs. Robert Carroll, New York, NY
Mrs. Nicholas Boyd, San Francisco, CA
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Green, San Francisco, CA
Mr. Chappy Morris, New York, NY
Ms. Carla Kirkeby, Los Angeles, CA
Mr. and Mrs. Elliot Caplow, Los Angeles, CA
Mr. and Mrs. Robert Meyerowitz, New York, N.Y.
Mr. and Mrs. Steven Gilsendaine
Mrs. Caroline Cushing Graham, Los Angeles, CA
Mr. Michael Nesmith, Los Angeles, CA
Mr. Griffen Dunne, New York, N.Y.
Mr. and Mrs. Paul A. Erskine, Pasadena, CA
Mr. N.J. Friedman, Hillsborough, CA
Mr. Harold Hollingsworth...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Two Koi
Located in Soquel, CA
Dramatic and colorful painting of two Koi. Circa 2000. Signed lower right corner "Linda H." Presented in white painted frame. Image size: 18"H x 36"W.
Category
Early 2000s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Oil, Canvas
1840 rare watercolor, Native American encampment, Western Indian Unknown artist
Located in Buffalo, NY
A rare mid 19th Century watercolor depicting Native Americans approaching a fort.
The subjects appear to be from a Northern Plains Tribes, and arre approaching a palisades style f...
Category
1840s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Paper, Gouache, Watercolor
"Excise", Oil Painting
Located in Denver, CO
Zack Zdrale's (US based) "Excise" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts one man pulling some clouded entity from another man with great effort and physical strain.
B...
Category
2010s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Panel, Oil
Male Torso
By John Koch
Located in London, GB
Pencil, coloured pencil and chalk on paper, titled (lower left), signed (lower right), 31cm x 46cm, (51cm x 68cm framed).
John Koch was an American painter and teacher, and an impo...
Category
1950s American Modern John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Paper, Chalk, Pencil, Color Pencil
Figure Study (Standing Male- Torso)
By Harold Haydon
Located in Chicago, IL
A black and white figure study of a nude male, from 1951, by artist Harold Haydon. Matted to 24" x 20". Provenance: Estate of the Artist. Estate stamped on reverse.
Harold Emers...
Category
1950s American Modern John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Graphite
Original Painting. Colliers Magazine Cover Published 1933 Wedding Illustration
By Antonio Petruccelli
Located in New York, NY
Original Painting. Colliers Magazine Cover Published 1933 Wedding Illustration
Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994)
The Wedding
Colliers published, June 17, 1933
17 1/4 X 11 1/2 inches (sight)
Framed 23 1/4 X 17 1/2 inches
Gouache on board
Signed lower right
BIOGRAPHY:
Antonio Petruccelli (1907-1994) began his career as a textile designer. He became a freelance illustrator in 1932 after winning several House Beautiful cover illustration contests.
In addition to 24 Fortune magazine covers, four New Yorker covers, several for House Beautiful, Collier’s, and other magazines he did numerous illustrations for Life magazine from the 1930s – 60s.
‘Tony was Mr. Versatility for Fortune. He could do anything, from charts and diagrams to maps, illustrations, covers, and caricatures,’ said Francis Brennan, the former art director for Fortune.
Over the course of his career, Antonio won several important design awards, designing a U.S. Postage Stamp Commemorating the Steel Industry and designing the Bicentennial Medal...
Category
1930s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Board, Gouache
"Safety Focused" - Original Street Art Painting by Leading Pop Artist Gary John
By Gary John
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles street artist Gary John exploded onto the international art scene first during Art Basel Miami in 2013. John’s playfully bold work quickly gained attention and he was nam...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Street Art John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Acrylic Polymer, Board, Mixed Media, Pastel, Newsprint, Graphite
Male Lying Nude
By Jackson Lee Nesbitt
Located in New Orleans, LA
This is a drawing from the artist's sketchbooks. This pencil drawing shows a nude male in repose, The drawing is dated November 30 '36 (1936). Clearly the works are authentic and this sketch is signed "Jackson Lee Nesbitt...
Category
Late 20th Century American Modern John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Graphite
African American Realist Oil Painting Baseball Outsider Folk Art Andrew Turner
By Andrew Turner
Located in Surfside, FL
Title: Home Run
Genre: Realism, sports, baseball
Subject: People
Medium: Oil (this might be acrylic, it feels like oil) on canvas
Country: United States
Dimensions: framed 23 X 25 sight 17.5 X 19.5
Provenance: Sande Webster Gallery in Philadelphia (bears label verso)
Faintly signed lower right (see photos)
Andrew Turner was born in 1944 in Chester, Pennsylvania. He was a graduate of Temple University Tyler School of Art. Andrew’s work has been widely acclaimed, with many solo exhibitions and participation in group exhibitions. He has taught art in grades K-12 in the Chester, Pennsylvania Public Schools and in correctional centers. His appointments include Artist-in-Residence and Curator, Deshong Museum, Chester, PA; Lecturer, Widener University; Lecturer, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; and, he toured and lectured in The People’s Republic of China. Andrew’s paintings are included in the collections of Woody Allen, Dr. Maya Angelou, ARCO Chemical Company, Bell Telephone Company, Dr. Constance Clayton, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Cosby, Edie Huggins, the artist previously known as Prince, Maya Angelou, Eric Lindros, Mr. and Mrs Louis Madonni, Moses Malone, Penn State University, Prince, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Sorgenti, Swarthmore College, Mrs. Marilyn Wheaton, and Widener University Deshong Museum, just to name a few. He has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad.
In an interview prior to his death in 2001, Turner noted, "My paintings combine the drama inherent in seventeenth century Dutch painting with the brush work and the economy of the Impressionists. However, I look to the jazz idiom more so than to other contemporary visual artists for guidance and inspiration. I tend to measure the success of my pieces by how they stand up technically, emotionally and innovatively to a John Coltrane solo or whether I've captured the spirit of the occasion, a la Duke Ellington. The subject matter, sometimes nostalgic recollections of my days as a young tough, covers a myriad of common folk activities. This one is reminiscent of Purvis Young. "The setting, usually my native Chester, is a beehive of creative stimulation or a deteriorating ghetto depending on my state of mind. At the very least, hopefully, these vignettes of experience will help to provide insight into some African American lifestyles and serve as an inspiration to my students and others to continue the legacy of African American participation in the arts."
Folk Artist, Outsider artist, Folk Art. His work is from the true original street artist such as Purvis Young and the early Brooklyn street art Jean Michel Basquiat.
“My paintings combine the drama inherent in seventeenth century Dutch painting with the brush work and the economy of the Impressionists. However, The setting usually my native Chester, is a beehive of creative stimulation or a deteriorating ghetto depending on my state of mind. At the very least, hopefully, these vignettes of experience will help to provide insight into some African American lifestyles and serve as an inspiration to my students and others to continue the legacy of African American participation in the arts.”
He was included in the seminal show PHILADELPHIA (PA). Woodmere Art Museum.
In Search of Missing Masters: The Lewis Tanner Moore Collection of African American Art.
September 28, 2008-February 22, 2009. Artists: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Joseph Delaney, Sam Gilliam, Leroy Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones...
Category
1970s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Oil, Canvas, Acrylic
Previously Available Items
Wisconsin Twilight
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Missouri, MO
John Steuart Curry (American, 1897-1946)
Wisconsin Twilight, 1934
Signed Lower Left
Gold Leafed Frame with Silk Mat and Gold Leafed Fillet
29 x 36.5 inches
41 x 46.5 inches with frame
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 national reputation for his Kansas rural scenes of people terrorized by natural phenomena such as tornadoes, drab farm-house living conditions, religious gatherings such as prayer meeting and baptisms, and spirited animals who got out of control. A good example of his weather-related painting was Tornado Over Kansas, 1929, in the collection of the Muskegon Museum of Art in Muskegon, Michigan. In this scene, a family scurries for shelter, trying to outrun a funnel cloud headed for their home. The mother carries her baby, and the children rescue pets and toys. It was later said that Curry never directly experienced a tornado but had many scares from them as a child when his family, faced with frightening skies, made frequent trips to their fruit cellar. In 1933, Tornado Over Kansas received second prize at the Carnegie International Exhibit.
He was especially focused on people who were down-to-earth, plain spoken and who were self reliantly making a living through hard physical labor challenged by harsh weather. In many of his paintings, he showed his disdain for racial discrimination and hatred, something he believed was psychologically poisonous. He did many murals dealing with land settlement and these themes of racial justice, and his, reflecting these themes, murals are in the Capitol Building in Kansas, the University of Wisconsin, Department of the Interior, and Department of Justice in Washington D.C.
Curry was a descendant of many generations of farmers, whose American ancestors originally were from Scotland. Some of them immigrated to South Carolina, and later followed "the line of the frontier into the Mississippi Valley."
The first born of five children, Curry said of his childhood: "I was raised on hard work and the shorter catechism---Up at four o'clock the year round, doing half a day's work before we rode to town on horseback to our lessons."
From a young age, he was constantly drawing, an activity encouraged by his mother, who arranged art lessons for him from age 12. She also gave him his first glimpse of the Old Master painters through reproductions of their work she had collected on her honeymoon.
Never of the studious nature, Curry quit the county high school in Winchester, Kansas and spent that summer as a railroad section-hand. His earnings provided him with enough money to buy a suit of clothes so that he could go to Kansas City and attend the Art Institute. A month later he moved to the Art Institute of Chicago, and remained there for two years, supporting himself by sweeping floors and acting as a bus-boy in the cafeteria. Upon America's declaration of war, Curry went to training camp, only to be sent home when it was discovered that he was still under age. In 1918 he enrolled at Geneva College, played football for two seasons, and spent the following five years training to earn his money as an illustrator of "blood-and-thunder" scenes for a popular western story magazine. In this capacity, he worked for illustrator Harvey Dunn in New Jersey from 1919 to 1926. He married and then persuaded art patron Seward Prosser to loan him $1000. 00,, which he used for one year of study in Paris in 1927.
The year in Europe, which included study at the Academy Julian, reinforced his independent nature. He was much more impressed by the paintings of Rembrandt and Rubens than by the modernist American painters, many whom were adopting the 'isms' of abstract styles of French contemporary artists such as Pablo Picasso's Cubism and Max Ernst's Surrealism. Curry determined to paint American subjects without European models and to celebrate American patriotism and regional pride rather than lofty, remote ideals espoused by the academics.
He returned to America penniless, and settling in Westport, Connecticut, swore that he would turn out a worthwhile picture or give up painting entirely. There in 1928 from memory he painted his first picture that became famous, Baptism in Kansas. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney bought it for her museum and subsidized him for two years at $50 a week.
Baptism in Kansas was heralded nationally as work of a new American genre, but fellow Kansans were not impressed until much later when they realized the scope of his recognition. Purchased by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, one of his key benefactors, Baptism launched his career as a regionalist. In 1930, he had his first one-man exhibition, held at the Whitney Studio Club, and was received enthusiastically by critics.
Although he lived primarily in the East, he returned often to Kansas where he stayed at his parents' farm and sketched rural-life scenes. His first wife died, and he gave up his studio in Westport, and secluded himself in a drab New York City studio. He taught at the Cooper Union and the Art Students' League, and held a show of circus studies after touring New England with Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey Circus. This tour and the resulting circus sketches and watercolors were inspired from his attendance in Kansas at many rural county fairs. Reportedly the circus people said they liked Curry but "quibbled over minor technical errors in his series of circus paintings."
In 1934 he married Kathleen Shepard, returned to Westport, recovered his old enthusiasm, and painted one of his most famous paintings, Line Storm. Westport beginning to appreciate him, commissioned him to do a double mural for the local high school. Additionally, the United States government selected him to paint murals for the Department of Justice and the Department of Interior buildings in Washington, D.C. He was appointed Artist-in-Residence in the College of Agriculture, University of Wisconsin, in 1936. At $4,000 a year he had his studio on the campus, where he could mingle with students, but he conducted no formal classes.
Curry also traveled occasionally to Arizona where he visited his parents who had a second home there and spent their winters. The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art in Manhattan, Kansas, is the repository of the Curry archives including many paintings. According to Bill North, the Museum's Senior Curator, Curry "did produce a number of paintings and watercolors with Arizona subjects, some, certainly prior to 1940. Relatively little is known about this aspect of his life and work. I assume that many, if not all of Curry's Arizona paintings...
Category
1930s Other Art Style John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Paper, Charcoal, Pastel, Graphite
SUMMER AFTERNOON
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Portland, ME
Curry, John Steuart. SUMMER AFTERNOON. Lithograph, 1939. Associated American Artists edition of 250. Signed in pencil, and with the AAA Label, as well...
Category
1930s John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Lithograph
SANCTUARY
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Aventura, FL
Sanctuary, alternatively titled Flood Relief. Czestochowski, 41. Lithograph on paper. Hand signed by the artist in pencil. Published by Associated American Artists. Image size 11.75...
Category
1940s Modern John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Paper, Lithograph
STALLION AND JACK FIGHTING
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Portland, ME
Curry, John Steuart. STALLION AND JACK FIGHTING. Lithograph, 1943. Edition of 260 published by Associated American Artists. Signed in pencil. 11 3/4 x 15 1/2 inches, 298 x 394 mm. (i...
Category
1940s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
MANHUNT
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Santa Monica, CA
JOHN STEUART CURRY (1897- 1946)
MANHUNT 1934 (Cole 22)
Lithograph, edition fewer than 100. No. 24/50. 9 5/8 x 12 ¾”. Full
margins. Very good Co...
Category
1930s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Lithograph
Manhunt
By John Steuart Curry
Located in New York, NY
John Steuart Curry ((1897-1946), Manhunt, lithograph, 1934, signed in pencil lower right and dated and titled lower left. Reference: Cole 22, edition of 50. In pristine condition, on a heavy ivory wove paper wtih deckle edges, the full sheet, 9 3/4 x 12 15/16 inches, the sheet 11 9/16 x 16 1/16 inches, archiival storage (between acid free board, non attached mylar hinging, glassine cover).
A fine fresh impression of this important document of 1930’s life.
Published by Contemporary Print Group, New York, and distributed by Raymond and Raymond, Inc. in a portfolio entitled “The American Scene, Series 2.” The suite included lithographs by John Steuart Curry, Thomas Hart Benton, William Gropper, Russell Limbach...
Category
1930s American Realist John Steuart Curry Art
Materials
Lithograph
John Steuart Curry art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic John Steuart Curry available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by John Steuart Curry in oil paint, paint and more. Not every interior allows for large John Steuart Curry, so small editions measuring 20 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Cecil Crosley Bell, Harold Vincent Skene, and Arthur Beecher Carles. John Steuart Curry prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $30,000 and tops out at $30,000, while the average work can sell for $30,000.
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Questions About John Steuart Curry Art
- 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.