Soundings
John Steuart Curry, the painter laureate of Kansas, is best known for his mural cycle in the state capitol in Topeka. (Studies for those murals hang in the Spencer’s 20/21 Gallery.) But prior to his mature work as a muralist, and even before the Regionalist works that won him early acclaim, Curry enjoyed success as an illustrator. His precocious talent was recognized by his mother—but apparently less so by this father, who would have preferred his
son stay at home on the family farm in Jefferson County—and she encouraged his art studies, initially at the Kansas City Art Institute, and later in Chicago and then New Jersey with the prominent
illustrator Harvey Dunn.
By the early 1920s, Curry was supporting himself designing
advertisements and producing illustrations for magazines such as The Country Gentleman, where this painting appeared in July 1923 accompanying a serialized story by Zane Grey from what
later became his novel, The Code of the West. Eventually, Curry was drawn away from his successful commercial career, and, in 1926, went to Paris where he completed his artistic training. Upon his return to the United States—not to Kansas but to Westport,
a bohemian art community on the Connecticut shore—he began creating paintings of Midwestern rural life, for which he is remembered today. Curry’s early works as an illustrator remain
an understudied field awaiting some sharp student’s engagement.
CCE
Soundings
John Steuart Curry, the painter laureate of Kansas, is best known for his mural cycle in the state capitol in Topeka. (Studies for those murals hang in the Spencer’s 20/21 Gallery.) But prior to his mature work as a muralist, and even before the Regionalist works that won him early acclaim, Curry enjoyed success as an illustrator. His precocious talent was recognized by his mother—but apparently less so by his father, who would have preferred his
son stay at home on the family farm in Jefferson County—and she encouraged his art studies, initially at the Kansas City Art Institute, and later in Chicago and then New Jersey with the prominent illustrator Harvey Dunn.
By the early 1920s, Curry was supporting himself designing advertisements and producing illustrations for magazines such as The Country Gentleman, where this painting appeared in July 1923 accompanying a serialized story by Zane Grey from what later became his novel, The Code of the West. Eventually, Curry was drawn away from his successful commercial career, and, in 1926, went to Paris where he completed his artistic training. Upon his return to the United States—not to Kansas but to Westport, a bohemian art community on the Connecticut shore—he began creating paintings of Midwestern rural life, for which he is remembered today. Curry’s early works as an illustrator remain an understudied field awaiting some sharp student’s engagement. CCE
This Land
Curry’s early commissions included illustrating the first serialization of Zane Grey’s The Code of the West. Grey famously fictionalized life in the Old West, where the cowboy or lawman must maintain social order through a strict sense of personal honor amidst the wilds of the frontier.
This Land
Curry’s early commissions included illustrating the first serialization of Zane Grey’s The Code of the West. Grey famously fictionalized life in the Old West, where the cowboy or lawman must maintain social order through a strict sense of personal honor amidst the wilds of
the frontier.
This Land
Curry’s early commissions included illustrating the first serialization of Zane Grey’s The Code of the West. Grey famously fictionalized life in the Old West, where the cowboy or lawman must maintain social order through a strict sense of personal honor amidst the wilds of
the frontier.
Exhibition Label:
"This Land," Mar-2014, Kate Meyer
Curry’s early commissions included illustrating the first serialization of Zane Grey’s The Code of the West. Grey famously fictionalized life in the Old West, where the cowboy or lawman must maintain social order through a strict sense of personal honor amidst the wilds of
the frontier.
Exhibition Label:
"John Steuart Curry: Agrarian Allegories," Aug-2006, Kate Meyer
After studying briefly at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago, Curry devoted his attention to illustration, earning commissions from Boy’s Life and The Saturday Evening Post. Like his painting The Code of the West, many of Curry’s illustrations from this period depicted western and outdoor scenes of action and drama.
