Exhibitions

John Steuart Curry (1897-1946), The Plainsman, 1945, lithograph on paper.

John Steuart Curry: Prairie Journeys

January 14 - May 11, 2014

Most of the Beach Museum of Art’s collection of approximately 900 works by regionalist artist John Steuart Curry came as a bequest in 2002 from Kathleen Curry, the artist’s widow. The museum’s holdings, which include paintings, prints, and drawings, represent one of the largest—if not the largest—collections of the artist’s work.

The works in this exhibition offer up a range of themes and formats relating to expeditions to the prairie, from pioneer settlement to American Indian movement to slave holders’ and abolitionists’ efforts to populate Kansas before and during the Civil War.

The exhibition will be incorporated into the museum’s “Picturing Kansas—Journey to the Prairie” school tours, and it will coincide with a spring 2014 art department credit seminar on Curry led by Beach Museum of Art Curator Liz Seaton.

Related Programs

John Steuart Curry: The Muse is Not Amused
January 30, 2014, 6 p.m., UMB Theater, Beach Museum of Art
In this talk, historian Diane Eickhoff and journalist Aaron Barnhart recount the controversy over Curry's Topeka Capitol murals. Sponsored by the Richard Coleman Beach Museum of Art Lecture Series fund.

John Steuart Curry: Regionalism at War
February 27, 2014, 5:30 p.m., UMB Theater, Beach Museum of Art
Lara Kuykendall lectures about John Steuart Curry's lesser-known World War II art, including war bond posters and military training imagery. Kuykendall is Assistant Professor of Art History at Ball State University.