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Large painting depicting a serene rural harvest landscape framed by tall autumn trees, with a field of corn shocks, rolling hills, a small farmstead, and a distant lake beneath a sky of billowing clouds.

Wisconsin Farm Scene

John Steuart Curry

How would you represent Wisconsin? Artist John Steuart Curry described what he captured in this painting as “the Wisconsin scene in as beautiful and simple [a] manner as possible.” His idealized view of a southern Wisconsin farm landscape celebrates the harmony between nature and the state’s rural residents. From 1936 until 1946, Curry traveled across the state as artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin’s College of Agriculture, observing the school’s research facilities and their impact on the local agriculture. The strips of pastures, fields, and patches of woodland featured in Curry’s painting represent the latest results of research on crop rotation and soil management and, by extension, the public outreach central to the university’s mission. Curry understood his unique role as an opportunity both to celebrate agriculture and to promote an appreciation of the arts among the rural population. This painting was one of three panels Curry made for the First National Bank formerly located on Madison’s Capitol Square. The others feature another farm scene and a view of downtown Madison between Lakes Monona and Mendota. Installed as a mural, they made a compelling visual case for the mutually beneficial relationships among the city, the university, and Wisconsin’s farming communities.
Artist/Maker
John Steuart Curry
(American, 1897 – 1946)
Title
Wisconsin Farm Scene
Date
1941
Material & Process
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
88 7/8 x 97 in. Overall
Credit
Gift of First National Bank and First Wisconsin Corporation
Inventory No.
1985.319
Classification
Paintings
Location
United States

Related

1941, commissioned by the First Wisconsin National Bank of Madison (Madison, WI); December 1985, gifted to the Elvehjem Museum of Art [now called Chazen Museum of Art]

  • "SchoolsMusuemsART (SMART) Project." Madison, WI: Madison Metropolitan School District, 2002.
  • Lidtke, Thomas D. and Annemarie Sawkins. "A Creative Place: The History of Wisconsin Art." Cedarburg, WI: Cedarburg Art Museum, 2021. p. 199, fig. 4.28

  • John Steuart Curry: At Home in Wisconsin: Museum of Wisconsin Art, 6/27/2014–9/14/2014
  • Inaugural Show: Museum of Wisconsin Art, 4/1/2013–4/1/2014
  • 100 Years of Wisconsin Art: Milwaukee Art Museum, 9/24/1988–11/6/1988

This large-scale painting depicts a serene rural landscape during harvest season. In the immediate foreground, a harvested field is filled with conical stacks of dried corn stalks arranged in rows across the stubble-covered ground. The stacks become smaller as they recede down a slope toward the right. The scene is bordered on the left by a tall tree with dense, rust-orange foliage and on the right by a tree with bright yellow leaves. In the middle ground, rolling hills display patchwork fields in varying shades of green and brown. A farmstead appears in the center right, identifiable by a red barn, a silo, and a white farmhouse. A small herd of black and white cows grazes in the pasture adjacent to the barn. Beyond the farm, a horizontal body of water stretches across the landscape, backed by a range of low, purple-grey hills in the distance. The upper half of the composition is dominated by large, billowing white and grey clouds set against a pale blue sky. The painting is organized using horizontal layers: cornstalks in the foreground, buildings and animals in the middle ground, and hills, water, and sky in the background. The trees on either side create vertical framing elements. The colors suggest autumn, with warm tones in the foliage and muted greens and browns in the fields and hills.

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