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

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John Steuart Curry

John Steuart Curry was artist-in-residence (the first such post in the country) in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's college of agriculture from 1936 until his death in 1946. Known as a regionalist along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, he attempted to create a universal art by depicting local landscapes and events with which the public could readily identify. Wisconsin Farm Scene (1985.319) was one of a three-part mural for the First National Bank, Madison, painted in 1941. The complete mural portrayed fall scenes in and around Madison, with a panoramic view of the city with its lakes and capitol contrasted to the countryside with its rich harvest. Smaller side panels showed fall birds and crops Curry's mature style showed line and narrative being replaced by an emphasis on color and composition.
Artist
John Steuart Curry
(American, 1897 – 1946)
Title
Wisconsin Farm Scene
Date
1941
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
88 7/8 x 97 in. Overall
Credit
Gift of First National Bank and First Wisconsin Corporation
Accession No.
1985.319
Classification
Paintings
Geography
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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