sketch for Tragic Prelude I (John Brown), John Steuart Curry

Exhibition Label: “Conversation II: Place-Kansas,” Apr-2008, Emily Stamey “Centered on the north wall is the gigantic figure of John Brown. In his outstretched left hand the word of God and in the right a ‘Beecher’s bible.’ Beside him facing each other are the contending free-soil and pro-slavery forces. At their feet, two figures symbolic of the million-and-a-half dead of the North and South. “In this group is expressed the fratricidal fury that first flamed on the plains of Kansas…. Back of this group are the pioneers and their wagons on the endless trek to the West, and back of all the tornado and the raging prairie fire, fitting symbols of the destruction of the coming Civil War.” John Steuart Curry Quoted in M. Sue Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism: John Steuart Curry and the Kansas Mural Controversy (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986). Exhibition Label: "John Steuart Curry: Agrarian Allegories," Aug-2006, Kate Meyer Curry opens his mural cycle with scenes of early European exploration in Kansas that shift into the territorial period (1854-1861), a time described by Emporia editor William Allen White as a “tragic prelude to the tragic years to come.” The figures of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and the Franciscan friar Juan de Padilla mark the beginning of Curry’s history of Kansas. In their quest for the seven cities of gold, Coronado and Padre Padilla traveled to Kansas almost 400 years before Curry fashioned his mural. To the left of Coronado stands the Plainsman, a slain buffalo at his feet. The three men look left toward John Brown. Brown stands in monumental scale, arms outstretched in cruciform pose, Bible in one hand, a Sharp’s rifle, or “Beecher’s Bible,” in the other. John Brown’s violent support of the free-state cause during the territorial period known as “Bleeding Kansas” contributed to the polarization of society leading to the Civil War. Union and Confederate soldiers flank Brown as covered wagons, a prairie fire, and a swirling tornado sweep westward across the tumultuous landscape.