John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West - Softcover

Junker, Patricia A.; Curry, John Steuart; Adams, Henry; Elvehjem Museum Of Art; Fine Arts Museums Of San Francisco; Nelson-Atkins Museum Of Art

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1555951406 ISBN 13: 9781555951405

Publisher: Chazen Museum of Art, 1998

Synopsis

Looks at paintings by the Kansas artist

About this title

From Booklist

Curry's reputation has languished since his premature death at age 48 in 1946. This work of images and criticism is a reminder of his place alongside Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood as the so-called American regionalists, whose Depression-era legacy is widely visible in their public murals. Curry's can be seen at the Departments of Justice and the Interior in Washington, and his most famous mural, Tragic Prelude--John Brown (the very picture of apocalyptic prophecy), is at the Kansas statehouse. Curry grew up in Kansas, where the weather is the landscape. Tornado, agree the six art curators recruited by Junker, is his masterpiece and illustrates this book's dust jacket, but as to Curry's overall repute, they tend to find fault. General opinion (and Thomas Hart Benton's, whose tribute to Curry is reprinted) is more forgiving than professional views, for Curry powerfully depicted the life of ordinary folk--on the farm, in the circus, in religious rituals. Suitable for most libraries, highly so for those in Kansas, Wisconsin, and Connecticut, the locales of Curry's studios. Gilbert Taylor

From Library Journal

The least-known of America's Regionalist Triumvirate, which included Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, John Steuart Curry (1897-1946), painted and illustrated scenes of farm life, tornadoes, circuses, and baptisms in his native rural Kansas. The Kansas State Capitol murals by this controversial and independent artist, depicting John Brown, dust storms, and cornfields stripped by grasshoppers, raised such a public furor in 1939 that they were never completed (see M. Sue Kendall's Rethinking Regionalism: John Steuart Curry and the Kansas Mural Controversy, 1986). This exhibition catalog, the first comprehensive study of Curry in 50 years, includes eight learned essays, a tribute published by Benton shortly after Curry's death, 68 color plates, 114 illustrations, and a chronology. Essential for academic collections.ARussell T. Clement, Univ. of Tennessee Lib., Knoxville
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chazen Museum of Art
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1555951406
• ISBN 13: 9781555951405
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 252