About John Steuart Curry
John Steuart Curry (November 14, 1897 – August 29, 1946) was an American painter whose career spanned the years from 1924 until his death.
Along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, he was hailed as one of the three great painters of American Regionalism of the first half of the twentieth century. Born and raised on a farm in Dunavant, Kansas, Curry drew the raw material of his life's work from the very soil beneath his feet. His childhood home was filled with many reproductions of Peter Paul Rubens and Gustave Doré, and these artists' styles played a significant role in crafting Curry's own style. He trained at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Institute of Chicago before working as a magazine illustrator, and then traveled to Paris in 1926 where he studied for a year with Russian academician Basil Schoukhaieff.
His artistic production was varied, including paintings, book illustrations, prints, and posters.
With Benton and Wood, Curry led the movement to create and celebrate what he felt was an indigenous and democratic American art — Regionalism — in a reaction against European modernist trends.
His first major painting, *Baptism in Kansas*, was greeted with critical acclaim when exhibited at the 1928 Corcoran Gallery of Art biennial. Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney took notice, provided Curry with financial support for the next two years, and later purchased *Baptism* for her newly established museum.
Among his best known works are *Baptism in Kansas* (1928), *Hogs Killing a Rattlesnake* (1930), and a series of paintings on circus life that he executed after touring with the Ringling Brothers in 1932.
He completed *Justice Defeating Mob Violence* for the Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C., one of two murals he painted as a Works Progress Administration (WPA) artist. For the Topeka State House in Kansas, Curry completed one of his most powerful and controversial images: a Moses-like representation of abolitionist John Brown in a mural titled *Tragic Prelude*.
In 1936, Curry became the first artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin. The position permitted him a great deal of freedom, and he
About this work
Curry's *Sanctuary* presents a moment of refuge—likely a bird or small creature finding shelter in nature's architecture. The composition draws on Curry's mastery of dynamic form and dramatic light, inherited from his study of Rubens's muscular baroque vocabulary and Doré's theatrical intensity. Here, that training tempers into something quieter: a refuge within the canvas itself. The palette probably carries the warm, earthy tones Curry favored—ochres and deep greens—with passages of light that model the sheltering space with sculptural weight. This is not sentimental nature-study but a robust, almost tactile rendering of sanctuary as a physical and psychological state.
By 1944, late in his career, Curry had moved beyond the raucous, crowd-filled dramas of his *Baptism* period. *Sanctuary* reflects his mature understanding that American regionalism could find profundity in smaller gestures—a creature's hiding place becomes a statement about vulnerability and survival. The work sits within his broader exploration of life lived close to the land, the dignity of ordinary survival, an echo of the Kansas farm childhood that never left his art.
On a wall, *Sanctuary* rewards sustained looking. It speaks to anyone who understands that refuge is both physical and spiritual. The print works beautifully in a study or bedroom—spaces where contemplation matters more than spectacle—where its warm tones create an atmosphere of protection rather than display. It's the kind of image that asks the viewer to pause, to recognize shelter, and to honor the quiet drama of endurance.