JohSteuart Curry: The Man and His Art

Written by Vivian Kiechel, PhD

John Steuart Curry, Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton are generally regarded as the Big Three of the
American Regionalist Movement of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. I would like to JohSteuart Curry focus on John
Steuart Curry: the man and his art.

Over the past six years, I’ve had the unique opportunity to get to know his widow, Kathleen Curry, initially as
her dealer and representative of the John Steuart Curry Estate, and now, as her friend. At 101, she’s a vital,
energetic person who lives independently in Connecticut. In fact, she mows her own lawn, scoops snow, and
until recent years, drove her own car. On my last trip to see her, we discussed this faded photograph of her in
her native England. I said, “Kathleen, I didn’t know that you were a riveter in WWII.” She said, “Heavens no, my
dear. I was an asthetalene welder …and it was WWI, 1914!”

We spent many hours in her living room as she talked about her husband and his art. She viewed the term
“Regionalism” as a problematic and arbitrary classification, particularly when viewed in terms of one art
historian’s terminology: a form of realism that involved picturesque, nostalgic scenes of rural America that lack
sophistication. This is simply not the case.

Much of Curry’s art addressed the pressing political and social issues of his day. Instead of being isolated and
unsophisticated, he openly drew on European influences and enriched the fabric of American Art.

John Steuart Curry was born in 1897 to livestock farmers Thomas Smith and Margaret Curry of Dunavant,
Kansas. John, their firstborn, fondly remembered the treasured souvenirs that his parents brought back from
their European honeymoon: art reproductions from the masters that hung on their walls.

At about the time that Kathleen and her friends were welding, John Steuart Curry was tethering his dad’s
horses to the back of their Kansas barn for sketching sessions. On the East Coast, the art scene was volatile.
The Great Armory Show of New York had become a lightning rod for controversy. “Pathological” was the word
used by the NY Times to describe the European art shown in the 67th St. armory. It was an eruption of isms:
cubism, futurism, dadaism. Marcel Du Champ’s futuristic Nude Descending a Staircase was compared to an
“explosion in a shingle factory.” Others called it a “menace to public morality.” The art world seemed
overwhelmed by European influence.

Only one year after the show, Europe was facing a more serious, global conflict: WWI.By war’s end, many
Americans died on foreign soil. Disillusionment and shattered idealism led our nation to search for its own
unique identity. Mark Twain and Walt Whitman became popular literary figures. In fact, Curry went on to
illustrate “Leaves of Grass” in 1934. Edward Alden Jewell of the NY Times championed an indigenously
American art that was realistic in style and traditional in subject matter, one in which artists would focus on The
American Scene.