The Dane G. Hansesn Memorial Museum is proud to present the "John Steuart Curry Exhibit" which will be on display from July 6, 2012 through August 26, 2012. The Museum will have twenty-five to thirty works on display. Included in the display will be two works which belong to the Hansen Museum. In March, 1998, the Dane G. Hansen Memorial Museum purchased two original works of art by nationally known artist JOHN STEUART CURRY (1897-1946). The museum acquired Winchester Tornado, 1930, oil on canvas, 20" x 26" and Winchester Tornado, 1930, sepia crayon, black ink and gray ink wash on paper, 15-3/16" x 20-3/4". The drawing is clearly a preparatory study for the painting. Both works depict the similar image of the remains of a small house or cabin after a tornado had demolished the structure.

 

Curry was immediately identified as a leqading member of the "Regionalist School," along with Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and Grant Wood of Iowa. Born in Dunavant, Kansas, Curry began his artistci career by studying drawing with the wife of the county attorney of Oskaloosa, Kansas. After a brief stint at the Kansas City Art Institute, he studied at Chicago Art Institute between 1916 and 1918. In 1919 he began studying with the Illustrator Harvey Dunn. Curry worked as an illustrator until 1926 when he went to Paris to study. By 1938, he had paintinted Baptisn in Kansas, which the Whitney Museum acquired in 1930. In 1938 he received a major commission to paint decorative murals for the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka. Other mural commissions include those for the Department of Justice and Department of Interior in Washington, D.D.