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John Steuart Curry (1897-1946). Tornado Over Kansas, 1929. Oil on canvas; 50 1/2" x 64 3/4" (framed size). Hackley Picture Fund purchase. Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, Michigan.

the artist

John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was the eldest of five children and grew up on a livestock farm in northeastern Kansas. Throughout his childhood he was constantly drawing and, with his mother's support, he was given art lessons when he was 12. Later, he attended art schools in Kansas and Chicago. His first job was drawing outdoor scenes for books and magazines, and he was lucky to receive advice from a well-known illustrator.

When he decided to become a painter, he went to Europe where he was impressed more by the paintings of Rembrandt and Rubens than by the important modern painters of the time. On his return to the United States he combined illustrating with painting and was eventually successful as an artist at age 31.

From the very beginning as a painter, his goals were to depict American life rather than adopt Modernist artistic ideas of Cubism and the many other "isms" that were popular at the time. He wanted to celebrate American patriotism and regional pride rather than imported artistic ideas.

For the most part, his work was about plain-spoken, self-reliant people as they struggled to make livings through hard manual labor as farmers and road workers, all the while challenged by a harsh climate. Some paintings also showed his hatred for the racial discrimination that continued to poison people's minds.

Recognition of his work came in part through sales of paintings and also through commissions for murals in numbers of government buildings. Perhaps the most important recognition was his appointment in 1936 to the University of Wisconsin as the first artist-in-residence anywhere in the nation. Interestingly, the appointment was in the College of Agriculture and not in Fine Arts. In this position he was free to do anything he wanted. Part of the time he painted, and yet all the while he kept his studio open to students. He also spent much time traveling around Wisconsin visiting nonprofessional rural artists and helping them with their art work.

In addition to farm scenes about daily life, Curry included religious themes such as prayer meetings and baptisms. He did this naturally enough, because religious celebrations were important events in the lives of people living on isolated farms in the Midwest where he had grown up. At the roots of their religion was the belief that the Scriptures were the exact truth.

One of Curry's most powerful paintings is of the great anti-slavery leader, John Brown, who he painted larger-than-life as an Old Testament prophet.

The idea of biblical punishments is also present in his use of violent natural disasters such as rainstorms, blizzards, floods and droughts. In addition, while the presence of storm clouds may have had biblical meaning for Curry, it also seems likely that he used stormy conditions to provide drama to the upper parts of his pictures in the absence of hills and mountains on the prairies.

this painting

This picture was chosen to illustrate American Regionalism because the depicts a familiar experience among farm families on the Midwestern prairies. The family is scurrying for shelter while a towering funnel cloud advances relentlessly toward their home.

The scene is made all the more powerful by possible connections with the biblical whirlwind described in the Book of Job, as well as the familiar story set in Kansas, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, where a tornado plays an important part. Curry never actually saw a tornado himself, but many came through when he was growing up and his family frequently fled to the cellar just as shown here. The tornado, itself, is accurately depicted probably from information seen in photographs.

This picture was painted in 1929, soon after Curry's work began to be recognized. The muscular father, dressed in overalls, directs his family toward the cellar, while he keeps an eye on the twister. The pale-faced mother looks fearfully at her husband as she carries her baby to safety, while the other children snatch up pets and toys on their way. The farm buildings are typical of the time and serve to focus attention on the figures. The foreground includes a child's cart, together with such homely objects as a battered rainwater tub and boards laid on the ground as a path when the ground was flooded. Only a person who had grown up on such a farm would have known to include these objects.

As the tornado advances, the fate of the farm animals is uncertain--especially the agitated horses in the distant field. The chicken, on the other hand, is quite oblivious to the pending danger and stands around as though it were a normal day. Stories still abound of large animals flying through the air when whirled away by tornadoes and of chickens stripped of their feathers. The overall fear of the family, of course, is the knowledge that their home may explode if struck by the tornado and that they may be killed or seriously injured if caught outdoors as it passes by.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Publishers' Development Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group