Wisconsin Landscape is an idealized composite of farm scenes that Curry saw while traveling around the American Midwest. The horizontal canvas provides a panoramic view of the region and draws attention to the dramatic sky. Celebrating agrarian calm and plentitude, Curry’s verdant scene appears to deliberately disregard the effects of the Great Depression, which continued to plague farming communities at the time. Along with Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, Curry contributed to an artistic movement known as Regionalism, which asserted that truly American art would emerge from small towns more so than large cities.
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New York. Walker Galleries. early November 1939 [on view in the gallery; see Ref. Bird 1939].
New York. Walker Galleries. "Fourth Anniversary Exhibition," November 27, 1939–January 6, 1940, brochure no. 1.
New York. National Academy of Design. "One Hundred and Fourteenth Annual Exhibition," March 15–April 11, 1940, no. 40.
Bloomfield Hills, Mich. Cranbrook Academy of Art. "Cranbrook-Life Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting," May 17–June 2, 1940, unnumbered cat. (lent courtesy of Walker Galleries Inc.).
Art Institute of Chicago. "Fifty-first Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture," November 14, 1940–January 5, 1941, no. 45 (listed for sale).
Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "One Hundred and Thirty-Sixth Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture," January 26–March 2, 1941, no. 329 (awarded the Jennie Sesnan Medal).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Artists for Victory: An Exhibition of Contemporary American Art," December 7, 1942–February 22, 1943, unnumbered cat. (p. 3; awarded First Prize).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Artists for Victory: Prize Winners," March 8–May 10, 1943, no catalogue.
Boston. Institute of Modern Art. "Artists for Victory: Prize Winners," May 22–June 19, 1943, no catalogue.
Milwaukee Art Institute. "The Art of John Steuart Curry," September 5–October 15, 1946, no. 54.
New York. Associated American Artists. "John Steuart Curry: 20 Years of His Art," March 24–April 12, 1947, no. 25 (dated 1940).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "20th Century Painters: A Special Exhibition of Oils, Water Colors and Drawings Selected from the Collections of American Art in the Metropolitan Museum," June 16–October 29, 1950, unnum. brochure (p. 4).
Los Angeles. Pan Pacific Auditorium. "National Construction Industries Home Show Exposition," June 14–24, 1951 [extended to August 31, 1951], no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Columbia Bicentennial Exhibition," October 28, 1954–April 18, 1955, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Fourteen American Masters: Paintings from Colonial Times to Today," October 16, 1958–January 4, 1959, no catalogue.
Moscow. Sokolniki Exhibition and Convention Centre. "American Painting and Sculpture. American National Exhibition," July 25–September 5, 1959, no. 4.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Paintings and Sculpture from the American National Exhibition in Moscow," October 28–November 15, 1959, unnumbered cat. (p. 9).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Three Centuries of American Painting," April 9–October 17, 1965, unnum. checklist.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "The 1930's: Painting & Sculpture in America," October 15–December 1, 1968, no. 24.
Madison, Wis. Madison Art Center. "John Steuart Curry, 1897-1946," January 19–February 23, 1969, no. 69.
Topeka. Kansas State Capitol. "John Steuart Curry," October 3–November 3, 1970, no. 45 (dated 1940).
Trenton. New Jersey State Museum. "This Land is Your Land," April 10–September 6, 1976, unnumbered cat.
Saint Louis Art Museum. "Currents of Expansion: Painting in the Midwest, 1820–1940," February 18–April 10, 1977, no. 108.
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Modern American Painting 1910–1940: Toward a New Perspective," July 1–September 25, 1977, no. 17.
Staten Island Museum. "20th Century American Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 9–28, 1978, brochure no. 5.
Berlin. Akademie der Künste. "Amerika: Traum und Depression 1920/40," November 9–December 28, 1980, no. 84.
Kunstverein Hamburg. "Amerika: Traum und Depression 1920/40," January 11–February 15, 1981, no. 84.
Munich. Haus der Kunst. "Amerikanische Malerei 1930-1980," November 14, 1981–January 31, 1982, no. 32.
Milwaukee Art Museum. "Leaders in Wisconsin Art, 1936–1981: John Steuart Curry, Aaron Bohrod, John Wilde," April 4–May 23, 1982, no. 18.
Williamstown, Mass. Williams College Museum of Art. "America in Transition: Benton and His Contemporaries, 1920–1940," April 14–June 30, 1985, no catalogue.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "American Landscape Painting," April 4–August 13, 1989, no catalogue.
Tulsa, Okla. Philbrook Museum of Art. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 14–June 9, 1991, no. 22.
Miami. Center for the Fine Arts. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 29–August 24, 1991, no. 22.
Omaha. Joslyn Art Museum. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 14–November 10, 1991, no. 22.
Tampa Museum of Art. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," December 14, 1991–February 8, 1992, no. 22.
Greenville, S. C. Greenville County Museum of Art. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," March 17–May 10, 1992, no. 22.
Madison, Wisc. Madison Art Center. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 6–August 2, 1992, no. 22.
Grand Rapids, Mich. Grand Rapids Art Museum. "The Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 11–November 8, 1992, no. 22.
Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison. "John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West," March 7–May 17, 1998, unnumbered cat. (pl. 56).
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. "John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West," June 13–August 30, 1998, unnumbered cat.
Kansas City, Mo. Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. "John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West," October 11, 1998–January 3, 1999, unnumbered cat.
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio. "Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland," February 18–April 30, 2000, no. 11.
Edward Alden Jewell. "Group Collection Put on Exhibition." New York Times (November 29, 1939), p. 21.
Paul Bird. "The Fortnight in New York: New Curry Picture." Art Digest 14 (November 1, 1939), pp. 18–19, ill.
Howard Devree. "New York Exhibition Reviews: Grosz and a Group." Magazine of Art 32 (December 1939), pp. 712, 714, ill., states that "from its dimensions and calibre [this work] seems destined to be a museum piece".
Carlyle Burrows. "Notes and Comment on Events in Art." New York Herald Tribune (December 3, 1939), p. E8, notes that an earlier state of this work was shown at the Walker Galleries "about a year ago" and "since then it has been virtually repainted," adding that "Curry has dramatized the theme in the variable light of a typically strong Mid-Western sky... a kind of dramatic poem on the opulence of the Wisconsin country".
"Cranbrook-LIFE Exhibition: Great Detroit Art Center Holds a Democratic Show of 60 Paintings by Living Americans." Life 8 (May 27, 1940), p. 65, ill. (color), quotes the artist's statement regarding this picture: "'I worked two years at it, off and on. I feel it is my greatest landscape.'".
Royal Cortissoz. "The Show of the National Academy." New York Herald Tribune (March 24, 1940), p. E8.
Thomas H. Benton. "Wisconsin Landscape." Demcourier 11 (April 1941), pp. 13–14, ill. opp. p. 13, describes his first impression of this work as "slightly repellent" but "as you look at it it becomes beautiful... It is something for men and women who live in a living world".
Edward Alden Jewell. "7 Prizes Awarded in Art Exhibition." New York Times (January 26, 1941), p. 35, notes that this work won the Jennie Sesnan Medal in Exh. Philadelphia 1941 for "'the best landscape in the exhibition'".
"Followers Without Leaders Dominate Pennsylvania Academy Annual." Art Digest 15 (February 1, 1941), p. 5, ill.
James W. Lane. "The Old Guard Never Surrenders Yet Still the New Comes Through: Prizewinners and Others at the Venerable Pennsylvania Annual." Art News 39 (February 1, 1941), pp. 8–9, ill.
A. Hyatt Mayor. Artists for Victory: An Exhibition of Contemporary American Art. A Picture Book of the Prize Winners. New York, 1942, unpaginated, ill.
A. Hyatt Mayor. "The Artists for Victory Exhibition." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 1 (December 1942), pp. 142–43, ill.
"Artists for Victory Score Victory in Metropolitan Exhibition." Art Digest 17 (December 15, 1942), p. 6, ill.
Edward Alden Jewell. "Artists for Victory: Afterthoughts on the Huge Nation-Wide Survey at the Metropolitan Museum." New York Times (December 20, 1942), p. X9.
"Record Art Show Has $52,000 Prizes." New York Times (December 8, 1942), p. 30, ill.
Edward Alden Jewell. "'Artists for Victory': Metropolitan Opens Tomorrow the Huge Contemporary American Survey." New York Times (December 6, 1942), p. X9.
"Metropolitan Museum Opens Artists for Victory Exhibition." New York Herald Tribune (December 8, 1942), p. 21.
"The Met's Biggest." Newsweek 20 (December 14, 1942), pp. 100–101, ill.
Robert M. Coates. "The Art Galleries: Whew!." New Yorker (December 19, 1942), p. 82.
Alfred M. Frankfurter. "The Artists for Victory Exhibition: The Paintings." Art News 41 (January 1–14, 1943), p. 11, ill. p. 8.
Laurence E. Schmeckebier. John Steuart Curry's Pageant of America. New York, 1943, pp. 132–33, 135, 139, fig. 90, notes that this work was commissioned by the Alexander Legge Farm Foundation.
Roy R. Neuberger. "Artists for Victory." Art in America 31 (January 1943), p. 54.
"This Week in the Art World: 'Artists for Victory' Exhibit Here." Daily Boston Globe (May 30, 1943), p. C7.
"The Reopened Metropolitan Shows its Riches Anew." Art News 43 (June 1–30, 1944), p. 18, ill.
Bertha L. Heilbron. "Reviews of Books: 'John Steuart Curry's Pageant of America.' By Laurence E. Schmeckebier." Minnesota History 25 (September 1944), p. 278.
Lester D. Longman. "Book Reviews: Laurence E. Schmeckebier, 'John Steuart Curry's Pageant of America'." College Art Journal 5 (January 1946), p. 142.
Carlyle Burrows. "Art of the Week: John Curry's Work is Honored in Wisconsin." New York Herald Tribune (September 8, 1946), p. C5.
Wolfgang Born. "The Panoramic Landscape as an American Art Form." Art in America 36 (January 1948), p. 6, fig. 3.
Emily Genauer. "Art and Artists: Metropolitan Museum, Like Whitman, Sings of America in Major Exhibition." New York Herald Tribune (June 18, 1950), p. D5.
Arthur Millier. "Art Masterpieces Lent for Exhibit." Los Angeles Times (June 17, 1951), p. 11.
Robert Beverly Hale. "American Painting 1754–1954." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 12 (March 1954), p. 181.
"As They Saw It: Three From the '30s." Time Magazine 63 (March 1, 1954), p. 72.
Albert Ten Eyck Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the American Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1957, p. 10.
Alexander Eliot. Three Hundred Years of American Painting. New York, 1957, p. 215, ill. p. 214 (color).
Stuart Preston. "Art: 'Fourteen American Masters'." New York Times (October 16, 1958), p. 41.
Dorothy Adlow. "American Art in Moscow." Christian Science Monitor (June 18, 1959), p. 9.
Stuart Preston. "Their School of Art—And Our Diversity." New York Times (June 28, 1959), p. SM 17, ill.
Emily Genauer. "U.S. Sending Best Art to Exhibit in Moscow." New York Herald Tribune (May 31, 1959), p. 18.
Emily Genauer. "U.S. Art Seen at Red Fair Shown Here." New York Herald Tribune (October 28, 1959), p. 20.
"Moscow to See Modern U.S. Art." New York Times (May 31, 1959), p. 60.
Vladimir Kemenov. "Russian: Plus and Minus at the Moscow Show." Art in America 48, no. 2 (1960), p. 34, ill. p. 36.
Henry Geldzahler. American Painting in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1965, pp. 94, 96, ill.
William Ashby McCloy inJohn Steuart Curry. Exh. cat., Kansas State Capitol, Topeka. [Lawrence, Kan.], 1970, pp. 4, 78, no. 45.
Brett Waller inJohn Steuart Curry. Exh. cat., Kansas State Capitol, Topeka. [Lawrence, Kan.], 1970, pp. 8, 50.
Matthew Baigell. The American Scene: American Painting of the 1930's. New York, 1974, p. 55, colorpl. 9.
Lynn E. Springer inCurrents of Expansion: Painting in the Midwest, 1820–1940. Exh. cat., St. Louis Art Museum. St. Louis, 1977, p. 158, no. 108, ill.
Joseph S. Czestochowski. John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood: A Portrait of Rural America. Exh. cat., Cedar Rapids Art Center. Columbia, Mo., 1981, pp. 15, 126, fig. 8 (color).
Rosalie A. Goldstein inLeaders in Wisconsin Art, 1936–1981: John Steuart Curry, Aaron Bohrod, John Wilde. Exh. cat., Milwaukee Art Museum. Milwaukee, 1982, pp. 9, 13, 22, no. 18, ill. p. 6 (color).
Leonard Everett Fisher. Masterpieces of American Painting. New York, 1985, pp. 156, 222, no. 63, ill. pp. 158–59 (color).
Piri Halasz. "Manhattan Museums: The 1940s vs. the 1980s; Part Two: The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Arts Magazine 59 (March 1985), p. 91.
Irma B. Jaffe. "Religious Content in the Painting of John Steuart Curry." Winterthur Portfolio 22 (Spring 1987), p. 29 n. 10, p. 33, fig. 12, dates it 1938–40.
Lisa M. Messinger inThe Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., American Federation of Arts. New York, 1991, pp. 61, 72, no. 22, ill. p. 73 (color) and ill. front and back covers (color).
Robert Rosenblum inThe Landscape in Twentieth-Century American Art: Selections from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., American Federation of Arts. New York, 1991, p. 11.
Mark M. Johnson. "From Current Exhibitions: The Landscape in 20th Century American Art." Arts & Activities 110 (November 1991), pp. 26–27, ill. (color).
"Calendar." Museum News 70 (May/June 1991), p. 29, ill. (color).
Eliot Nusbaum. "Joslyn Hosts a Vivid Landscape Show." Des Moines Sunday Register (September 22, 1991), p. 7F.
James M. Dennis. "Patricia A. Junker. 'John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West'." Archives of American Art Journal 37, no. 3/4 (1997), pp. 32–33, 36.
Patricia Junker in Patricia Junker Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison. John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West. New York, 1998, pp. 163, 196, 202–7, 233–35, 238, fig. 9, colorpl. 56, dates it 1937–39 and notes that the artist reworked the painting over those years; considers the repainting as influenced by the imminent threat of war "since the clouds that hover over this idyllic scene carry with them the suggestion of impending doom".
Theodore F. Wolff in Patricia Junker. John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West. Exh. cat., Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison. New York, 1998, pp. 84–85.
Henry Adams in Patricia Junker. John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West. Exh. cat., Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison. New York, 1998, pp. 113–14, 128.
Michael D. Hall inIllusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland. Exh. cat., Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, Ohio. Minneapolis, 2000, pp. 255, 272, colorpl. 11.
Jerry Cullum. "Reviews Midwest: Madison." Art Papers 25 (September/October 2001), p. 47.
Carol Troyen inMarsden Hartley. Ed. Elizabeth Mankin Kornhauser. Exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford. New Haven, 2002, pp. 245, 252 n. 29, fig. 4 (color).
James R. Kieselburg, II. "Midwestern Images of Labor: Wisconsin Artists and Their Portrayal of Industry." IA: The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 34, no. 1/2 (2008), p. 144.
Lauren Kroiz. "'A Jolly Lark for Amateurs': John Steuart Curry's Pedagogy of Painting." American Art 29 (Spring 2015), pp. 41–44, fig. 10 (color).
Roberta Smith. "A Trans-Atlantic View of Modernism." New York Times (January 9, 2015), p. C30.
Randall R. Griffey inMarsden Hartley's Maine. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2017, pp. 113–14, 175 n. 21, fig. 93 (color).
Lauren Kroiz. Cultivating Citizens: The Regional Work of Art in the New Deal Era. Oakland, 2018, pp. 197–201, fig. 87 (color).
Beatriz Cordero inThe Irascibles: Painters Against the Museum, New York, 1950. Ed. Bradford R. Collins et al. Exh. cat., Fundación Juan March. Madrid, 2020, p. 82.
John Steuart Curry (American, Dunavant, Kansas 1897–1946 Madison, Wisconsin)
1930
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