John Brown

John Steuart Curry's powerful close-up portrayal of nineteenth-century abolitionist John Brown shows a roaring man with blazing eyes and furrowed brow, his beard and hair buffeted by wind and his arms outstretched. He towers over a black man, at lower left, who represents the American slaves Brown fought to free. Behind them, covered wagons indicate the pioneering settlers who, like Brown, came to the Kansas Territory in 1855 to populate it with supporters of abolition. In the distance a raging fire and a tornado funnel are omens of the violence that would accompany America's struggles over the issue of slavery. By presenting Brown as a monumental figure, his arms and torso approximating the form of a crucifix, Curry likens him to a religious prophet as wrathful, intense, and colossal as the forces of nature shown behind him. In fact, rather than basing Brown's head on existing photographs, Curry modeled it on the famous sixteenth-century sculptural portrayal of the biblical Moses by Italian renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564).

John Brown is famous as the impassioned leader of the unsuccessful raid in 1859 at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in an attempt to incite a slave uprising. Brown's actions, which fueled the Civil War, resulted in his hanging, but many regarded him as a righteous martyr for the abolitionist cause. Curry, a native Kansan, instead focused on Brown's historic role in establishing Kansas as a so-called free state in which slavery was banned. He originated this image of Brown in The Tragic Prelude (1938–40), one of his series of commissioned murals chronicling the state's history for the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka. Shortly thereafter, he made a related painting as well as this print. Along with other artists of the so-called regionalist movement of the 1930s, which championed art accessible to ordinary Americans, Curry regarded lithography, like mural painting, as a populist medium, and originally priced this lithograph at a modest five dollars.

Visages de l'Amérique: de George Washington à Marilyn Monroe (Faces of America: From George Washington to Marilyn Monroe), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2004 (on exhibit partial run: April 1–July 5, 2004). [exh. cat.]

Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865–1945, Art Institute of Chicago and Terra Foundation for American Art (organizers). Venue:  Shanghai Museum, Shanghai, China, September 28, 2018–January 6, 2019.   [exh. cat.]

Cole, Jr., Sylvan. The Lithographs of John Steuart Curry, A Catalogue Raisonné. New York: Associated American Artists, 1976. No. 34.

Madonia, Ann C. Prairie Visions: Circus Wonders; The Complete Lithographic Suite of John Steuart Curry. (exh. cat., Davenport Art Gallery). Davenport, Iowa: Davenport Art Gallery, 1980. Text p. 7; fig. 20, p. 19 (black & white).

Czestochowski, Joseph S. and Sue Kendall. John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood: A Portrait of Rural America. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press with Cedar Rapids Art Association, 1981. Ill. no. 84, p. 108 (black & white); C-35, p. 123.

The Gloria and Donald B. Marron Collection of American Prints. Santa Barbara, California: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1981. Text p. 146; ill. p. 103.

American Graphics, 1860 to 1940: Selected from the Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1982. Text no. 109, p. 112; ill. no. 109, p. 113.

Watrous, James. American Printmaking: A Century of American Printmaking, 1880–1980. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984. Text p. 113; fig. 4.19, p. 115.

Creation & Craft: Three Centuries of American Prints. (exh. cat., Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc.). New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., 1990. Text p. 98; ill. no. 105, p. 98.

Hults, Linda C. The Print in the Western World: An Introductory History. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Text p. 744; fig. 12.51, p. 747.

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. American Moderns, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Fig. 7, p. 15 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Fig. 7, p. 15 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print] Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865-1945. (exh. cat. Shanghai Museum with Art Institute of Chicago and Terra Foundation for American Art). Shanghai: Shanghai Museum, 2018. Text p. 147; ill. p. 155 (color).