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John Steuart Curry (American, 1897-1946)
Tornado Over Kansas
Oil on canvas, 1929
Hackley Picture Fund purchase,
1935.4
Tornado Over Kansas and Baptism in Kansas are arguably John Steuart Curry’s two most famous paintings. Heavily reproduced, both have been used not only to define Curry’s career, but the entire Regionalist art movement. Tornado Over Kansas speaks to a distinct period of U.S. history and the struggle to define the “American” style of art. Tornado has been celebrated from its first public display, receiving a second place award at the “Century of Progress” exhibition in 1930. The painting has appeared in over 150 publications since its debut, including school textbooks, art magazines, art history texts, and the Hollywood blockbuster Twister. Tornado first captured the eye of the nation in 1934, in the pages of Time magazine, where the painting was illustrated in an article about the new U.S. style painters. The article included biographies on Thomas Hart Benton, Reginald Marsh, John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood.
Full of heightened drama and mythic figures, Tornado was painted while Curry lived in Connecticut and is inspired by the memories of his youth and his efforts to define an “American” style of art. The house and barn look much like those on the farm he grew up on and are used here to typify the Midwest homestead. The tornado is the ultimate expression of the power the weather holds over life in the Midwest and on its farms in particular—its destructive force cannot be controlled or prevented and its visual presence evokes fear and danger. According to his widow, Curry never saw a tornado himself, but it is impossible to live in Kansas and not know the very real possibility one, and the sense of dread that comes with every violent storm. Curry would certainly have heard numerous accounts of devastating tornados and has depicted this one based upon spoken and photographic accounts.
Curry worked as an illustrator, and the dramatic narrative speaks to conveying a story through art. The figures in this drama are icons for the prototypical family in Curry’s Kansas. The father is central, rising over the other figures in a place of command, his square jaw and heroic profile set against the fury of the storm, his well muscled arm cocked against the threat. His wife is pale and frightened, clutching her child to her breast and looking to her husband for support. The boys are smaller versions of their father, serving as rescuers to the family’s cat and dogs. The last child, a girl, looks up to her father as protector, as he pulls her by the hand to safety. The entire family is grouped into a circle, heightening their connection to each other and planting them firmly amidst the tilting angles of the farm around them. Their circular configuration also serves to repeat the motion of the approaching tornado.
Tornado Over Kansas was purchased by the Hackley Art Gallery from Feragil Galleries, through the efforts of Maynard Walker, an aggressive proponent of Regionalist art. At the time the Curry was under consideration it was accompanied by a painting by Thomas Hart Benton. The Benton was not purchased, nor were the additional Curry paintings that Walker offered at the close of the sale of Tornado Over Kansas. While in retrospect the purchase of the Curry seems an obvious choice, and the decline of the Benton and another Curry short-sighted, in 1935 the paintings were new, the careers of the artists promising but not celebrated, and the movement of Regionalism still in its early stages and derided by the Modernist critics in New York. Today, Tornado Over Kansas is a national treasure and one of our most prominent works.
Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867-1947)
La porte de la Villa du Bosquet au Cannet (Gate at the Villa Bosquet in Le Cannet)
Oil on canvas,1944
Gift of the L.C. and Margaret Walker Foundation, 1975.25
Elizabeth Catlett (American b. 1915)
Glory
Cast bronze, 1981
Drs. Osbie and Anita Herald Fund purchase,
2000.1
Elizabeth Catlett’s work is bold and powerful, shaped by her social viewpoint to reveal the strength, character, and struggle of African Americans. Glory represents a frequent theme in Catlett’s work, transforming the idealized classical bust into the image of an African American woman; and, in so doing, reveals a powerful dignity, serenity, and hope.
In 1931 Catlett won a scholarship to study art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, but was rejected admission due to her race. Instead, she attended Howard University and studied under Lois Mailou Jones. While at Howard she worked briefly for the WPA. After graduating, she worked for two years as a teacher in Durham, North Carolina where, alongside NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, she fought for equal wages for Black teachers.
Frustrated by the segregated South, Catlett left to study at the University of Iowa under Grant Wood. Wood’s encouragement transformed the direction of her work into one that would explore and celebrate African American culture and the lives of women. Catlett was the first student to earn an MFA in Sculpture from the university and her thesis piece, a limestone sculpture entitled Mother and Child, won first prize in sculpture at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago. While in Chicago she met her first husband, the artist Charles White.
Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)
The Seine at St. Mammes
Oil on canvas, c.1867-69
Gift of Martin A. Ryerson on the 20th anniversary of the Hackley Art Gallery, 1932
Dale Chihuly (American, b. 1941)
Cobalt Blue Persian Set with Cadmium Red Lip Wraps
Blown glass, 1972
Gift of the SPX Corporation, 2002.3a-n
photo by Frederic A. Reinecke
Joos van Cleve (Flemish, c. 1485-1541)
Saint Jerome in Penitence
Oil on panel, c.1516-1518
Hackley Picture Fund purchase, 1940.47
Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910)
Answering the Horn
Oil on canvas, 1876
Hackley Picture Fund Purchase, 1927.2
After a brief apprenticeship with a lithographer, Winslow Homer became a freelance illustrator for Ballou’s Pictorial in Boston, then for Harper’s Weekly in New York in 1859. Harper’s Weekly sent him to the front when the Civil War broke out, resulting in some of the most important visual reports on the war in print. Homer’s wood engravings depicted the war dispassionately, showing the mundane activities of the soldiers as often as the battles and conflicts. After the war Homer took up painting and spent time in Paris in 1866 and 1867 but, except for some Barbizon influence, was largely unchanged by the experience. Homer’s early work was often painted plein-air and depicted young men and women or children playing and working outside. His interest in the outdoors and in a simple, agrarian lifestyle, are typified in Answering the Horn, painted in 1876. In 1873 Homer began to paint in watercolor as well and used it as often as oil. Homer’s career changed markedly with a trip to the coast of England in 1881 and 1882, where the artist encountered the majesty and fury of the sea and the struggle of men and women against its power. Homer settled at Prout’s Neck in Maine along the rocky coast and the sea remained his major focus for the duration of his career.
Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967)
New York Restaurant
Oil on canvas, c. 1922
Hackley Picture Fund purchase, 1936.12
Edward Hopper studied under Robert Henri and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the New York School of Art from 1900 to 1906 and also had some contact with William Merritt Chase. He made three trips to Europe, but did not enroll for formal study. Hopper was included in the 1913 Armory Show but after the exhibit he abandoned painting for the next decade, making a living as a commercial artist and refining his art through etchings and watercolors. In the early 1920s a watercolor, The Mansard Roof, was exhibited and purchased by the Brooklyn Art Museum. It laid out what would become the hallmarks of Hopper’s work: a precise sense of location; clear, harsh light; strong geometric elements; and a sense of loneliness and melancholy. His subtle observations of American life made Hopper a pivotal figure in the development of American art. New York Restaurant comes out of Hopper’s early career. While the scene is crowded, the woman in the red hat seems removed and distant, uninvolved with the man who sits with her. Hopper spoke of this painting in a letter to the MMA dated January 9, 1937: "The picture New York Restaurant was painted about 1922 – not later at any rate. In a specific and concrete sense, the idea was to attempt to make visual the crowded glamour of a New York restaurant during the noon hour. I am hoping that ideas less easy to define have, perhaps, crept in also."
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