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Lot Essay
Executed circa 1937.
After attending school at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago, John Steuart Curry quickly gained recognition as an illustrator for major publications including Country Gentleman and Saturday Evening Post. Along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, Curry was one of the leading artists of the Midwest Regionalist movement during the first half of the twentieth century. Benton commented that "together we stood for things which most artists do not much believe in. We stood for an art whose forms and meanings would have direct and easily comprehended relevance to the American culture of which we were by blood and daily life apart." (P. Junker, John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West, New York, 1998, p. 76) Creating works of aesthetic power grounded in social consciousness, Curry produced works that were indigenous American paintings that depict ordinary scenes with an epic grandeur. Oklahoma Land Rush is characteristic of Curry's most exceptional work, a narrative panoramic scene that is personable yet heroic with its social, historical and political undertones.
In Oklahoma Land Rush Curry instantly draws the viewer in to the scene with an animated composition rendered in vivid colors. In a satirical comment on western expansion, the figures are attempting to race against each other by any means necessary, covered wagon, horse, carriage, train, and even a bicycle. Each caricatured figure is pitted against the next, rushing across the picture plane. An elegantly dressed couple sits upon the front of the train in a cavalier manner, doing their best to avoid the chaos that surrounds them. Curry's comment on man's relationship to the land and his surroundings inspire a sense of loss and destruction that the artist explored throughout his career as a regionalist painter. Benton said that "Curry produced a body of work unique in its empathetic and keenly observed depiction of American Rural life. More than any of his contemporaries, he caught the spirit and character of the Midwest shortly before and during the Depression years." (John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West, p. 83)
A dedicated supporter of American art, Curry's following command to artists was printed in the September 1935 issue of Art Digest magazine: "The artist must paint the thing that is most alive to him. To do this in a distinguished manner takes thought and a realization of what is to be accomplished. Thousands of us are now painting what is called 'the American scene.' We are glorifying landscape, elevated stations, subways, butcher shops, 14th Street, Mid-Western farmers, and we are one and all painting out of the fullness of our life and experiences. Now, because the artist is an American and painting a sky-scraper, that will not make a great work of art, not even a distinguished one. There must first be lively interest in the subject; then comes the step of designing the form so that the feeling and underlying motive that comes through will be sharpened and given its full dramatic power. It is a fault that we all fall into - to paint a fact without first considering the dramatic or spiritual side of the subject. It is well to remember always that thing which is beyond the power of the camera eye to report." (J.S. Curry, "What Should the American Artist Paint?" as quoted in J.S. Czestochowski, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood: A Portrait of Rural America, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1981, p. 40)
Speaking of his friend and colleague, Benton went on to pronounce that "it will surely be said of John Curry that he was the most simply human artist of his day. Maybe in the end that will make him the greatest." (John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West p. 76)
The final version of Oklahoma Land Rush hangs at the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.
After attending school at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago, John Steuart Curry quickly gained recognition as an illustrator for major publications including Country Gentleman and Saturday Evening Post. Along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, Curry was one of the leading artists of the Midwest Regionalist movement during the first half of the twentieth century. Benton commented that "together we stood for things which most artists do not much believe in. We stood for an art whose forms and meanings would have direct and easily comprehended relevance to the American culture of which we were by blood and daily life apart." (P. Junker, John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West, New York, 1998, p. 76) Creating works of aesthetic power grounded in social consciousness, Curry produced works that were indigenous American paintings that depict ordinary scenes with an epic grandeur. Oklahoma Land Rush is characteristic of Curry's most exceptional work, a narrative panoramic scene that is personable yet heroic with its social, historical and political undertones.
In Oklahoma Land Rush Curry instantly draws the viewer in to the scene with an animated composition rendered in vivid colors. In a satirical comment on western expansion, the figures are attempting to race against each other by any means necessary, covered wagon, horse, carriage, train, and even a bicycle. Each caricatured figure is pitted against the next, rushing across the picture plane. An elegantly dressed couple sits upon the front of the train in a cavalier manner, doing their best to avoid the chaos that surrounds them. Curry's comment on man's relationship to the land and his surroundings inspire a sense of loss and destruction that the artist explored throughout his career as a regionalist painter. Benton said that "Curry produced a body of work unique in its empathetic and keenly observed depiction of American Rural life. More than any of his contemporaries, he caught the spirit and character of the Midwest shortly before and during the Depression years." (John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West, p. 83)
A dedicated supporter of American art, Curry's following command to artists was printed in the September 1935 issue of Art Digest magazine: "The artist must paint the thing that is most alive to him. To do this in a distinguished manner takes thought and a realization of what is to be accomplished. Thousands of us are now painting what is called 'the American scene.' We are glorifying landscape, elevated stations, subways, butcher shops, 14th Street, Mid-Western farmers, and we are one and all painting out of the fullness of our life and experiences. Now, because the artist is an American and painting a sky-scraper, that will not make a great work of art, not even a distinguished one. There must first be lively interest in the subject; then comes the step of designing the form so that the feeling and underlying motive that comes through will be sharpened and given its full dramatic power. It is a fault that we all fall into - to paint a fact without first considering the dramatic or spiritual side of the subject. It is well to remember always that thing which is beyond the power of the camera eye to report." (J.S. Curry, "What Should the American Artist Paint?" as quoted in J.S. Czestochowski, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood: A Portrait of Rural America, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1981, p. 40)
Speaking of his friend and colleague, Benton went on to pronounce that "it will surely be said of John Curry that he was the most simply human artist of his day. Maybe in the end that will make him the greatest." (John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West p. 76)
The final version of Oklahoma Land Rush hangs at the Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.