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Catalog Data

Creator:
Curry, John Steuart, 1897-1946  Search this
Subject:
Curry, Kathleen  Search this
Type:
Scrapbooks
Video recordings
Photographs
Sketches
Interviews
Place of publication, production, or execution:
United States
Physical Description:
10.1 Linear feet
Arrangement:
The collection is arranged into ten series: Series 1: Biographical Materials, 1911-1993 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet) Series 2: Family Correspondence, 1916-1946 (Box 1; 0.2 linear feet) Series 3: Correspondence and Project Files, 1928-1946 (Boxes 1-3, OV 11; 2.3 linear feet) Series 4: Subject Files, 1848-1946 (Boxes 3-4, OV 11-12; 0.7 linear feet) Series 5: Notes and Writings, circa 1911-1946 (Box 4; 0.3 linear feet) Series 6: Personal Business Records, 1916-1952 (Box 4, OV 13; 0.3 linear feet) Series 7: Print Materials, 1918-1985 (Boxes 4-5, 10; OV 12-13; 1.6 linear feet) Series 8: Photographs, circa 1900-1998 (Boxes 5-6, OV 14; 1.1 linear feet) Series 9: Artwork, 1941, undated (Box 7, OV 12, 14, 15; 0.2 linear feet) Series 10: Estate Papers, circa 1946-1999 (Boxes 7-9 and rolled document; 2.3 linear feet)
Access Note / Rights:
The bulk of the collection has been digitized and is available online via AAA's website. Access to undigitized portions requires an appointment.
Summary:
The papers of painter, muralist, and illustrator John Steuart Curry, and Curry family papers, measure 10.1 linear feet and date from 1848 to 1999. Papers document his career and family history through certificates, correspondence, photographs, clippings, contracts, receipts, inventories, writings, notes, and other materials. The papers contain particularly rich documentation of Curry's period as artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin, from 1936 to 1946. Mural projects in Kansas, Washington, DC, and Wisconsin are also documented.
Citation:
John Steuart Curry and Curry family papers, 1848-1999. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Additional Forms:
The papers of John Steuart Curry and the Curry Family in the Archives of American Art were digitized in 2007, and total 10872 images.
Types of materials not digitized or partially digitized include published books and pamphlets, personal financial records unrelated to artwork, photographs of works of art, estate files related to projects and exhibitions dated after 1985, duplicate items, and copies.
Materials lent for microfilming are available on 35mm microfilm reels 164-168 and 4574-4576 at the Archives of American Art offices and through interlibrary loan.
Location of Originals:
Materials loaned by Mrs. Curry in 1971 for microfilming were returned to the donor, who later donated the sketchbooks to the Worcester Museum of Art in 1999.
Funding:
Funding for the processing and digitization of this collection was provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art
Use Note:
The Archives of American Art makes its archival collections available for non-commercial, educational and personal use unless restricted by copyright and/or donor restrictions, including but not limited to access and publication restrictions. AAA makes no representations concerning such rights and restrictions and it is the user's responsibility to determine whether rights or restrictions exist and to obtain any necessary permission to access, use, reproduce and publish the collections. Please refer to the Smithsonian's Terms of Use for additional information.
Related Materials:
The Archives of American Art holds an oral history interview with Kathleen Curry regarding John Steuart Curry conducted in 1990 and 1992. The Archives of American Art also holds microfilm of material lent for microfilming (reels 164-168 and 4574-4576) including 98 sketchbooks, 1919-1942; a ledger, 1938-1946, of expenses with four loose letters to John Steuart Curry in Italian and Spanish; a notebook, 1932-1938, titled "Account and records of works, etc."; a journal, undated, of drafts of poems, and approximately 50 sketches. Loaned materials were returned to the lender some of which were subsequently donated to the Worcester Museum of Art in Worcester, Massachusetts. This material is not described in the collection container inventory.
John Steuart Curry memorabilia received with the Kathleen Curry's donation in 1979 (baby cup, baby dress, overalls, medals, paint box, watercolor box, 2 photographs) were transferred to the Spencer Museum of Art in 1985.
Biography Note:
Painter, muralist, and illustrator John Steuart Curry is considered one of the three important painters of the American Regionalist movement, along with Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and Grant Wood of Iowa. Curry was born in north-eastern Kansas in 1897, and grew up on his family's farm. Curry left high school to attend the Kansas City Art Institute briefly, and then studied at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1916 with Edward J. Timmons and John Norton. Curry later spent a year in Paris studying with Basil Schoukhaieff in 1926 and 1927.
Curry began his career as a freelance illustrator in Leonia, New Jersey, under the influence of Harvey Dunn. Curry's illustrations were widely published in illustrated magazines such as Boy's Life , Country Gentleman , and Saturday Evening Post in the early 1920s. He married Clara Derrick in 1923 and lived in Greenwich Village, and then Westport, Connecticut, from 1924 to 1936. Derrick died in 1932, and in 1934 Curry married Kathleen Gould.
Curry's career shifted from illustration to painting during the 1920s and 1930s, bolstered by success in exhibitions and sales. Exhibits included the National Academy of Design (1924), the Corcoran Gallery (1927-1928), a solo exhibition at the Whitney Studio Club (1930), and the Carnegie International Exhibition (1933). Early sales include Baptism in Kansas , purchased by the Whitney in 1930, and Spring Shower , purchased by the Metropolitan Museum in 1932. Curry taught at Cooper Union (1932-1934) and the Art Student's League (1932-1934), and painted his first murals in Westport under the Federal Art Project in 1934.
In 1936, he was appointed artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture as part of a rural art program developed by rural sociologist John Burton. The purpose of his residency was to serve as an educational resource for rural people of the state. Curry stayed in this position until his death in 1946, carrying out the program's mission through lectures and visits with dozens of art and civic groups around the state, and by making himself available to rural artists through correspondence and guidance in his studio. He also helped to organize annual rural art exhibitions for UW's Farm and Home Week beginning in 1940. In return for his work, he was given a salary and a studio on campus and the freedom to execute his own work as he chose.
Under the Federal Art Program's Section of Painting and Sculpture, Curry completed two murals in the Justice Department building in Washington in 1936, Westward Migration and Justice Defeating Mob Violence , and two murals in the Department of the Interior building in 1938, The Homestead and The Oklahoma Land Rush . A design that was rejected by the government for the Justice building, a mural entitled Freeing of the Slaves , was later executed at the University of Wisconsin in their law library. From 1938 to 1940, Curry worked on murals for the state house rotunda in Topeka, Kansas admist a stormy, public controversy over his dramatic depiction of Kansas history. The legislature effectively blocked Curry's completion of the project through a formal resolution not to remove marble that was blocking areas that were part of Curry's design. Infuriated, Curry left the unfinished murals unsigned, and later derided the state frequently for the treatment he received. The Kansas State legislature issued a formal apology and appreciation of the completed murals in the 1990s.
Despite the lack of appreciation of his home state, Curry did receive recognition elsewhere during his lifetime as an artist of national importance. He continued to paint and exhibit in the art centers of the East Coast. In 1941, he won the Gold Medal Award at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts exhibition, and in the 1942 Artists For Victory exhibition, he won the top prize for Wisconsin Landscape . Curry's book illustrations were in high demand, and he contributed to books such as My Friend Flicka , editions of Lincoln's and Emerson's writings, and Wisconsin writer August Derleth's The Wisconsin . A biography of Curry written by Laurence Schmeckebier was published in 1942.
Curry died in 1946 of heart failure. A retrospective that had been planned for the living artist opened less than a month after his death at the Milwaukee Art Institute. His wife, Kathleen Curry, maintained his estate until her death, in 2001, at the age of 102. Additional retrospective exhibitions were held at Syracuse University in 1956 and in the Kansas State Capitol in 1970. In 1998, the exhibition "John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West" was organized at the University of Wisconsin and traveled to the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum and the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.
Language Note:
English .
Provenance:
John Steuart Curry's widow, Kathleen Curry, lent materials on reels 164-168 for microfilming in 1971. In 1979, she subsequently donated portions of the material lent, along with additional items, some of which were transferred to Spencer Museum of Art. In 1972, Mildred Curry Fike, John Steuart Curry's sister, gave material and R. Eugene Curry, a brother, donated more material in 1975 and 1993. Ellen Schuster, John Steuart Curry's daughter, donated the home movies in 1973 and Daniel Schuster, John Steuart Curry's son-in-law, gave additional papers in 1991 in 1992, 1995, and 1999. In 1992, 1999 and 2000, additions were received from Kathleen Curry that may contain material previously filmed as a loan on reels 164-168.
Digitization Note:
The papers of John Steuart Curry and the Curry Family in the Archives of American Art were digitized in 2008. The bulk of the papers have been scanned and total 10,919 images.
Location Note:
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, 750 9th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20001
Topic:
Art -- Study and teaching  Search this
Art -- Technique  Search this
Works of art  Search this
Regionalism  Search this
Muralists -- Wisconsin  Search this
Illustrators -- Wisconsin  Search this
Theme:
Lives of artists  Search this
Record number:
(DSI-AAA_CollID)9459
(DSI-AAA_SIRISBib)211657
AAA_collcode_currjohn
Theme:
Lives of artists
Data Source:
Archives of American Art
EDAN-URL:
edanmdm:AAADCD_coll_211657