{"data":{"id":"310","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":310,"topgoose_id":2689,"tms_id":310,"display_name":"John Steuart Curry","sort_name":"Curry John Steuart","display_date":"1897–1946","begin_date":"1897","end_date":"1946","biography":"\u003cp\u003eThough John Steuart Curry left his family’s\nfarm to pursue a career as a painter on the\nEast Coast, he returned to his Midwestern\nroots as subjects for his art. \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/2500\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eBaptism in\nKansas\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, his first major painting, portrays two\nfundamental elements the artist associated\nwith his upbringing: the hardscrabble\nlandscape of his native Kansas and the\nreligious fervor of its inhabitants. (Curry\nproudly avowed that he was “raised on hard\nwork and the Shorter Catechism.”)\nBased on a baptism Curry witnessed on\na neighbor’s farm, the painting sets\nthe ceremony around a cattle trough amid\nseveral farm buildings, with the stark prairie\nlandscape receding into the background.\nAt the scene’s center, surrounded by\npious worshippers singing hymns, a young\nwoman is about to be submerged into\nthe water by an ashen-faced preacher.\nThe image is filled with modern details, such\nas the line of Model-T cars and the cattle\ntrough, a symbol of the deep-water drilling\ntechniques that had made the state farmable.\nYet the pair of birds hovering in an aureole\nof light over the scene—a raven and a dove,\nthe birds Noah released after the Flood—\nsuggests a divine, timeless significance\nin the survival of these hardy individuals amid\ntheir harsh environment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen \u003cem\u003eBaptism in Kansas \u003c/em\u003ewas first\nshown in 1928, critics hailed it as a\ndeparture from the abstract language and\nurban themes employed by American\nmodernists. Curry’s vision of an idealized\nAmerican heartland signaled the emergence\nof Regionalism, a nationalistic, narrative\nstyle of painting that glorified rural,\nhomespun values during the hardships\nof the Great Depression.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500115503","wikidata_id":"Q3290532","created_at":"2017-08-30T17:32:45.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-30T07:05:18.576-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/310/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/310/exhibitions"}}}}