Label
Label located in file for 2013 exhibit, but may have been written earlier:
Like the other Regionalists, Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry returned again and again to the midwest landscape for inspiration. Unlike Benton and Wood, who typically manipulated the landscape for their own expressive purposes, Curry seldom exaggerated a landscape's appearance. Curry's landscapes may not have been any closer to existing topography than Wood's or Benton's, but they seemed more authentic to many viewers. Curry's Storm over Stone City was executed in July of 1933 while Curry was visiting Grant Wood at the Stone City Art Colony. The print may have served as a demonstration piece for students since only 15 or fewer prints were pulled. The handwritten notations in the bottom margin of these prints were evidently written from memory because the number of the edition varies from 10 to 15.Label
2024 post:
Throughout 2024, we're looking back at the 100 year history of art at the Mulvane. "Storm Over Stone City" was made by noted Kansas artist John Steuart Curry in 1933. At the time, he was a member of the Stone City Art Colony in Iowa with other renowned artists like Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. A few years after he completed this print, Curry was commissioned to create a series of murals for the Kansas State Capitol; however, he only completed two due to negative public reactions. Today, his murals and other works are considered masterpieces of American Regionalism.Label
John Steuart Curry, 1897-1946
Storm over Stone City, 1933, lithograph
Museum Purchase, 1990
Curry was born on a farm near Dunavant, KS, and studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago. In the 1930s he became nationally known as a Regionalist, that is an artist who depicted America’s rural heartland. In 1933 he actually resided in New York, but this print was made when he visited Grant Wood, another important Regionalist artist, at Wood’s Stone City Art Colony in Iowa. Curry was invited to join the Prairie Print Makers in 1938.