John Steuart Curry, The Homestead and Building of the Barbed Wire Fence, 1937-1939, as depicted in a mural at the Interior Department in Washington D.C. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, photo by Carol M. Highsmith.

Kansas History: A Journal of the Central Plains 43 (Winter 2020-21): 254–271

254 History A New Chronology of the Development of ’s Murals for the Rotunda of the

by Julia R. Myers

n May 1942, Kansan John Steuart Curry traveled to Topeka to put the “finishing touches on the [Tragic Prelude and Kansas Pastoral] murals,” which he had started painting on the Kansas State Capitol’s second floor in the summer of 1940.1 There he had intended to create, in his words, a “historicalI allegory” that would tell the story of Kansas. The allegory begins in the east corridor with the Tragic Prelude, which depicts both the Spanish conquistador Francisco Coronado, who arrived in Kansas in 1541, and the abolitionist John Brown, who fought against proslavery forces in 1856 during the period known as . The eight murals in the rotunda, which were never painted, would have told the in more detail with scenes from both before and after 1856, including references to early settlement by whites and the Dust Bowl. In the west corridor, Kansas Pastoral (Fig. 1) portrays, in Curry’s words, “the ideal unmortgaged farm home,” a hopeful vision at a time when many Kansas family farms were in foreclosure or on the edge of it, as was the Curry family farm in 1938–1939.2 Curry scholar Patricia Junker considers the statehouse mural cycle, even in its incomplete state, one of the “crowning

Julia R. Myers, professor emerita of Art History at Eastern Michigan University, was formerly the curator of collection and exhibitions at the Mulvane Art Museum, Washburn University. With Barbara Thompson, she authored the catalogue raisonnée Charles M. Capps, 1898–1981: Etching, Aquatints, Lithographs and Block Prints. She thanks Elizabeth Seaton, curator at the Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, for reading an early draft of this article.

1.“To Finish Kansas Murals,” Kansas City (MO) Times, May 5, 1942, John Steuart Curry (hereafter JSC) vertical file, MF256, State Archives, Kansas Historical Society, Topeka, KS (hereafter State Archives, KHS, MF256). See also Carl Bodmer, “Gleanings from the Field of Art,” Topeka State Journal, June 15, 1940, State Archives, KHS, MF256, and “Curry Resumes Work on Murals Today,” Topeka Capital, July 23, 1940, State Archives, KHS, MF256. 2. JSC, “Description of Murals for Kansas State Capital” (hereafter Description I), John Steuart Curry and Curry Family Papers, 1848–1999 (here- after Curry Family Papers), Series 3: Correspondence and Project Files, box 2 (hereafter Series 3, box 2), folder 47, Kansas State House Murals, Nar- rative Description and Contract (hereafter folder 47), 8–13, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (hereafter AAA). The foreclosure and sale of Curry’s parents’ farm took place in 1938–1939. After the sale of the farm, his parents moved permanently to their ranch near Scottsdale, Arizona, which they had owned since 1910 and where they had wintered for many years. See M. Sue Kendall, Rethinking Regional- ism: John Steuart Curry and the Kansas Mural Controversy (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1986), 102; and Frank N. Ownings, Jr., and Elizabeth G. Seaton, John Steuart Curry: The Cowboy Within (Manhattan, KS: Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, 2019), 13, 16–17, 50 and 64n40. Swann and Tsutsui have suggested that the elder Currys were “unperturbed” about losing their farm, citing a 1938 letter by Curry’s mother in which she says, “We are getting on comfortably here [Arizona]. . . . So we hate to throw good money into the gap,” apparently describing their reluctance to try to save the farm. See Marjorie Swann and William M. Tsutsui, “John Steuart Curry: A Portrait of the Artist as a Kansan,” in John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas History, ed. Virgil Dean (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), 246. Rather than being “unperturbed,” it seems to me that the Currys were simply making a practical business decision. Surely, they had an emotional invest- ment in the farm since Smith Curry’s father had settled his family there in 1869. See Conwill Carlson, “Curry and Kansas: A Story of Heroic Life,” Kansas City (MO) Star, August 22, 1937, State Archives, KHS, MF256.

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 255 came in 1928 when his Baptism in Kansas became a sensation at a Corcoran Gallery of Art exhibition. Soon thereafter he was taken up by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who began to finance his painting career. By 1934, Curry had received widespread national recognition as a Regionalist artist along with Grant Wood of Iowa and Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri.5 Kansans, however, did not generally share the nation’s elevated estimation of Curry. His 1931 one- person exhibition that toured Kansas was not well received.6 For Fig. 1. John Steuart Curry, Kansas Pastoral, detail of farm and farmer, 1937-1942, oil example, Mrs. Henry J. Allen, wife and tempera on canvas, Kansas Statehouse, Topeka, Kansas. of the former governor, asked in a letter published in the Kansas City achievements of his career.”3 With the rotunda Times why Curry had to “paint outstanding friekish murals, the cycle would have been Curry’s most [sic] subjects and call them the ‘spirit’ of Kansas.”7 conceptually complex mural series, which the Such subjects included tornados, Pentecostal artist pondered and worked on for six years (1937 worship services, and hunts for Black fugitives.8 to 1943), the longest gestation period of any of his However, by 1935, Curry’s fame as a Regionalist works of art. was such that Curry himself and his supporters, Born in 1897 near Dunavant, Kansas, John Steuart such as renowned Kansas newspaperman Curry studied at the School of the Art Institute , tried to find commissions or of Chicago from 1916 to 1918 and, beginning in a position for him in Kansas. Failing that, in 1936, 1919, with well-known illustrator Herbert Dunn he became the artist-in-residence at the University in Tenafly, New Jersey. He spent the majority of of Wisconsin College of Agriculture.9 the 1920s illustrating popular weekly magazines Smarting from their loss of Curry to Wisconsin, while living in New York and later in Westport, a number of Kansas newspaper editors and Connecticut.4 Curry’s breakthrough as an artist publishers came up with the idea of having Curry paint murals in the statehouse. They formed the

3. Patricia Junker, “Twilight of Americanism’s Golden Age: Curry’s Kansas Mural Commission, which on July 19, Wisconsin Years,” in Patricia Junker et al., John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1998), 5. Kendall, Rethinking , 22 and 36. 196. Junker considers Curry’s other “crowning achievement” to be 6. Ibid., 26–27 and 31–33; and Swann and Tsutsui, “John Steuart Wisconsin Landscape in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Laurence E. Curry,” 240 and 244. Schmeckebier went even further. In 1943, he wrote that “from every 7. The letter is published in Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 31 and 138n68. point of view, [the Kansas State Capitol murals] . . . are without ques- 8. For example, Tornado over Kansas, 1929, Muskegon Museum of tion the greatest mural achievements in America today.” Laurence Art; Manhunt, 1931, Joslyn Museum of Art; and Gospel Train, 1929, Eli Schmeckebier, John Steuart Curry’s Pageant of America (New York: Syracuse University Art Collection, which depicts a Pentecostal wor- American Artists Group, 1943), 354. ship service. See Robert L. Gambone, “The Use of Religious Motifs in 4. Ownings and Seaton, John Steuart Curry, 20–29; and Kendall, Curry’s Art” in Junker et al., John Steuart Curry, 143–44. Rethinking Regionalism, 21–22. 9. Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 18–19.

256 Kansas History 1937, commissioned Curry to do just that.10 The project.15 But in fact, one Curry supporter, State Sen. artist submitted his initial plan for the murals, Albert Cole of Holton, Jackson County, wanted to which was approved by the Mural Commission try again. Cole had been the only dissenter to the on November 12, 1937.11 This plan called for the aforementioned resolution. During the debate on removal of the Italian marble above the rotunda’s the measure, he defended the murals, saying, “I wainscoting to allow the murals there to be the think the paintings are real art.”16 On November same height as the corridor paintings.12 But 24, 1942, Cole wrote to Curry that he planned unfortunately, almost from the time Curry received to introduce legislation to remove the marble in the commission, the murals were embroiled in the rotunda so that the artist could complete his controversy. On March 31, 1941, the Kansas State work. He asked Curry to resubmit his sketches Senate, responding to the controversy, passed a for the rotunda with “an explanatory statement to resolution refusing to remove the marble panels accompany them (which should be so elementary in the rotunda. This made it impossible for Curry that even a Senator could understand it).”17 Curry to paint the planned murals and thus ruined the responded favorably, and on February 10, 1943, continuity of the “historical allegory.”13 As noted he sent Cole not his initial 1937 sketches and above, Curry finished his work on Tragic Prelude description but new sketches and a new text. Cole and Kansas Pastoral in May 1942. He then left the then presented these sketches and text to the Senate state, but not before issuing this bitter rebuke: and introduced the legislation on February 12.18 “The work in the east and west wings stand as The Curry-Cole correspondence allows us to disjointed and un-united fragments. Because this sequence Curry’s three undated descriptions of project is uncompleted and does not represent my the murals in the Archives of American Art and to true idea, I am not signing these works. I sincerely chronologically order his sketches for the rotunda, believe that in the fragments, particularly in the including those held by the Kansas Museum panel of John Brown, I have accomplished the of History, Topeka; the Spencer Museum of Art, greatest paintings I have yet done, and they will , Lawrence; and unlocated stand as historical monuments.”14 studies reproduced contemporaneously in the Previous scholarship has held that this was the press.19 Thus, we are able to see the development of end of Curry’s involvement on the statehouse Curry’s ideas for the rotunda over time, allowing us to witness his thoughtful creative process, his 10. Ibid., 17 and 37–40. The Mural Commission was chaired by then response to criticism, and the ripening of his ideas governor Walter A. Huxman. Other members included Jack Harris, as he developed his plans for the murals in three publisher of the Hutchinson (KS) News-Herald; William Allen White of the Emporia (KS) Gazette; Henry J. Allen, editor of the Topeka State stages. His third plan for the rotunda murals Journal; and Paul Jones of the Lyons (KS) Daily News. See also Anne C. Harries, “The Contestable John Brown: Abolitionism and the Civil War in the U.S. Public Memory” (master’s thesis, Pennsylvania State 15. Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 132. University, 2011), 25. For a full listing of the members, see the letter 16. “Curry Murals Panned by Senate,” 1. from Jack Harris to John Steuart Curry, November 11, 1930, Curry 17. Letter from Albert M. Cole to JSC, November 24, 1942, Curry Family Papers, Series 3, box 2, folder 41, Kansas State House Murals, Family Papers, Series 3, box 2, folder 46, Kansas State House Murals 1939–1940, 44, AAA. 1942–1943 (hereafter folder 46), 11, AAA. 11. A. L. Schultz, “Special Commission Approves Preliminary Sketch- 18. Letters from JSC to Albert M. Cole, January 25, 1943, and Febru- es: Kansas Painter Gives Ideas on State House Murals” [Topeka State ary 10, 1943, Curry Family Papers, Series 3, box 2, folder 46, 14–15, Journal?], November 12, 1937, JSC vertical file, Kan L 4.12 C979, 2003, AAA; “Senate Help to Curry Murals,” Topeka State Journal, February 12, State Library of Kansas, Topeka, KS (hereafter SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976). 1943, SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976; and “Curry Sketches for Rotunda Are on 12. Description I, 9. Display,” Topeka Capital, February 18, 1943, State Archives, KHS, MF256. 13. “Curry Murals Panned by Senate: Resolution by Toland Ad- 19. JSC, Description I, 8–13; JSC, “Description of Murals for the opted,” Iola (KS) Register, April 1, 1941, 1. Kansas State Capitol” (hereafter Description II), 4–7; and JSC, “Kansas 14. John Steuart Curry, as quoted in “Curry Will Not Sign Kansas Mu- Murals: Eight Panels in the Rotunda” (hereafter Description III), 2–3, rals,” Topeka Daily Capital, May 24, 1942, 5B, State Archives, KHS, MF256. Curry Family Papers, Series 3, box 2, folder 47, AAA.

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 257 incorporated subjects from both his first and August 5, 1937, the Kansas City Times noted, “Some second plans, further elaborating on the state’s Kansans are sensitive concerning any mentions of history. He also added a scene of soil conservation the Dust Bowl tragedy.”24 On August 27, 1937, a as a solution to the depredations of the Dust Bowl, writer in the Topeka State Journal advised Curry depictions of which had been in his plan from the not to put “undue emphasis to . . . the horror beginning. This last change made the rotunda of grasshoppers, drouths and duststorms.”25 murals more optimistic and, hopefully, more After Curry submitted his initial sketches to pleasing to the legislature. the Mural Commission in November 1937, one What made Curry’s murals so objectionable in writer agreed that nature occasionally brought the first place? From the time Curry’s ideas for “disaster upon them [the state’s inhabitants] in the murals were first known in the summer of the form of droughts, grasshopper plagues and 1937 through his completion of Tragic Prelude and storms,” but “a good many Kansans . . . resent Kansas Pastoral in May 1942, the press, legislators, having it discussed in paint.”26 As Kendall has and the public commented both positively and observed, this “sensitivity” stemmed in part from negatively on the murals.20 For example, Curry the fact that by 1936, the federal government and was criticized for the stance of the bull, the lack conservationists were blaming the Dust Bowl on of curls in the pigs’ tails and the length of the farmers. According to this analysis, their plowing mother’s dress in Kansas Pastoral. Eager to please, of prairie grasses, which held the soil in place, had Curry made some, but certainly not all, of the ultimately led to erosion and dust storms.27 suggested changes.21 As art historian Karal Ann Equally significant, as Kendall has suggested, Marling has pointed out, criticism of Depression- was the fact that Curry’s terrifying image of John era public mural projects was not uncommon, but Brown raised the hackles of many, including many in Curry’s case, it proved fatal to the completion of the state’s legislators.28 An April 1941 Kansas of his mural program.22 City Times article, “Kansas Senators Take Potshots Scholars M. Sue Kendall and Kate Meyer have at Curry’s Murals in Statehouse,” quoted one concluded that essentially two aspects of the legislator as saying that Brown was “an erratic, murals turned the public against them—Curry’s crazy old coot and murderer. I don’t see any reason inclusion of Dust Bowl scenes in the rotunda to perpetuate this memory. . . . I don’t like those and his interpretation of John Brown. Meyer atrocities on that wall of horror.”29 Apparently, his has argued convincingly that as soon as Curry’s opinion was apparently widely shared. In a May preliminary ideas for the murals were known 1941 letter to the editor in the Ft. Scott Tribune, the in the summer of 1937, people began to express writer noted, “The senator’s views concerning displeasure about possible Dust Bowl scenes.23 On the late John Brown coincide with those of a good 20. Curry, his murals, and public and official reaction to the murals 24. “Freedom in Kansas Murals,” Kansas City Times, August 5, 1937, were covered extensively in the media. Voluminous newspaper and SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976. magazine clippings on these topics are housed in the JSC vertical files 25. Elmer T. Peterson, “Curry Controversy Stimulating Interest in in the State Library of Kansas and State Archives, Kansas Historical Art throughout Kansas,” Topeka State Journal, August 27, 1937, Mural Society, as cited above. Paintings and Decoration vertical file, Kan L 4.12 M972/2, State Library 21. For example, see A. L. Schultz, “Murals Annoy Barn Painters,” of Kansas, Topeka, KS (hereafter SLK, Kan L 4.12 M972/2). See also April 15, 1939, State Archives, KHS, MF256; “Vote Cash for Murals,” Thomas Craven, “John Steuart Curry,” Scribner’s Monthly 103 (January Kansas City (MO) Times, April 7, 1941, State Archives, KHS, MF256; and 1938): 36, as quoted in A. L. Schultz, “John Steuart Curry Paints Things “John Brown and John Curry Both in Bad with Legislature—They Dis- Which Are Burned into the Soul,” Topeka State Journal, January 6, 1938, like the Bull, Too,” Topeka State Journal, March 31, 1941, State Archives, SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976. KHS, MF256. See also Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 126. 26. “Curry Murals Produce Material for a Controversy,” Kansas City 22. Karl Ann Marling, Wall to Wall America: A Cultural History of Star, April 21, 1939, State Archives, KHS, MF256. Post-Office Murals in the Great Depression (Minneapolis: University of 27. Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 124–25. Minnesota Press, 1983), passim. 28. Ibid., 125–32. 23. Kate M. Meyer, “Broken Ground: Plowing and America’s Cul- 29. Quoted in “Kansas Senators Take Potshots at the Curry Murals in the tural Landscape” (PhD diss., University of Kansas, 2011), 144–47. Statehouse,” Kansas City Times, April 1, 1941, State Archives, KHS, MF256. 258 Kansas History many Kansans.”30 Kendall has also argued that the controversy about the marble was simply an excuse to keep Curry from completing the murals, and this was undoubtedly true to a certain extent.31 But the removal of the marble did seem to be a real concern.32 In April 1939, the Executive Committee in charge of the Capitol building claimed that it had not been informed that the marble needed to come down, despite the fact that its removal had been approved by the Mural Commission, as had been reported in the press.33 When the Executive Committee members realized that the marble was to be dismantled, they “hit the ceiling,” Fig. 2. John Steuart Curry, Study for the Rotunda: Two figures according to John Harris, a member of the Mural flanking doorway and eight small sketches, pencil and ink, 1937. Commission.34 Moreover, as the Kansas City Star reported, “many officials and citizens . . . became Surprisingly, despite the extensive criticism violent in their protests to the executive council” of the statehouse murals, Curry planned few about the proposed marble removal.35 The marble changes to them until early 1943, when he sent in the Capitol was apparently a point of pride for his new proposal and sketches for the rotunda to Kansans. The 1941 Senate resolution denying the Senator Cole. To understand this final plan, it is removal of the marble explained, “The marble in first necessary to look at Curry’s previous sketches the Statehouse building is of unusual quality and and written outlines for the rotunda murals. beautiful markings, and there is no question but that it compares favorably with any Statehouse in Preliminary Drawings the West.”36 Curry responded bitterly, “The great pparently, Curry did not originally fault of my work is that it is not Italian and it is not intend to create a “historical allegory” in expensive enough.”37 the statehouse murals, nor did he plan to use the rotunda murals to historically connect the 30. “Can’t Leave John Out,” Ft. Scott (KS) Tribune, May 14, 1941, A State Archives, KHS, MF256. Tragic Prelude to Kansas Pastoral. Instead, untitled 31. Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 131–32. drawings in the Kansas Museum of History indicate 32. See, for example, “Curry Murals Produce Material for a Con- troversy”; “Murals of Curry Stir: Sketches Shown in Kansas Capitol that he first conceived of the eight rotunda panels Raise Controversy,” Kansas City Star, April 13, 1939, State Archives, as each depicting a single figure that, for Curry, KHS, MF256; “Heat from Art Too: Curry Revives Issue of Marble vs. embodied an aspect of Kansas. One drawing (Fig. Murals,” Lawrence (KS) Daily Journal World, August 2, 1940, SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976; and “Marble Blocks Artist Curry Kansas Murals,” Topeka 2) shows a doorway presumably leading to either Capital Journal, June 29 1941, SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976. the east or west corridor, flanked by monumental 33. The removal of the marble is mentioned almost as soon as seated figures, one with a cowboy hat. Below this the murals were commissioned. See “Iron in Kansas People Must Be Portrayed, Says Curry,” Topeka Capital, August 5, 1937, SLK, Kan L 4.12 are eight small rectangles framing very indistinct C976. drawings. Six of these are labeled “Stockman 34. Letters from John Harris to JSC, April 13 and April 14, 1939, Farmer,” “Wife,” “Tornado,” “Dust Storm,” “Bull,” Curry Family Papers, Series 3, box 2, folder 41, 9–10, AAA. 35. “Murals of Curry Stir.” and “Hogs.” The two other panels are not labeled. 36. Senate Resolution 20, March 31, 1941, Curry Family Papers, Another untitled drawing (not pictured) shows Series 3, box 2, folder 44, Kansas Statehouse Murals, 1941 (hereafter a similar conception. In it, four panels flank two folder 44), 18–19, AAA. 37. JSC to Mrs. Mark Clutter, April 4, 1941, Curry Family Papers, doorways. The images in the top two panels are Series 3, box 2, folder 44, 25, AAA.

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 259 Fig. 3. John Steuart Curry, Study for the Rotunda: Eight rectangular sketches, pencil, 1937. very sketchy but may represent a tornado and a Killing a Snake, 1930.41 His 1932 lithograph Ajax dust storm. The bottom two panels depict a bull depicts a bull.42 A farmer and his wife, a bull, and what appears to be a figure subject. To the left, and hogs figure prominently in Kansas Pastoral another panel shows a tornado.38 in the statehouse, and a tornado is seen in the Curry had already treated four of the background of Tragic Prelude. However, despite aforementioned subjects, and they seem to have Curry’s earlier and contemporaneous portrayal been part of his iconography of Kansas, as a of these five subjects, including the farmer’s wife, few examples will indicate. Curry gave the title none of them remained in the final plan for the The Stockman to his 1929 portrait of his father rotunda. Only the “Dust Storm” scene in the surrounded by cows and pigs.39 His 1929 Tornado drawings continued to be a subject in the rotunda over Kansas was recreated as a lithograph in 1932.40 mural program. Curry’s 1927 lithograph Coyotes Stealing a Pig was A more fully realized, and presumably later, followed by The Prodigal Son, 1929, an image of drawing for the rotunda murals (Fig. 3) shows the the biblical prodigal feeding the pigs, and Hogs transition Curry made from single, emblematic images to more complex multifigure narrative 38. These two drawings for the rotunda (accession nos. 1993.75.1 scenes. This drawing is divided into eight and 1993.75.2) are part of a group of nineteen preliminary drawings for the statehouse murals given to the Kansas Museum of History in 1993 panels. The two upper center panels depict single by Curry’s wife. I’d like to thank Blair Tarr, museum curator, Kansas images—a tornado and what appears to be a Historical Society, Topeka, for lending some of these drawings to Watching Curry Work: Sketches for His Kansas Capitol Murals, a 2013–2014 41. For Coyotes Stealing a Pig, 1927, see Cole, Lithographs, cat. nos. 2 exhibition that I curated at the Mulvane Art Museum, Washburn Uni- and 3. The Prodigal Son, ca. 1930, is in the Columbia Museum of Art, Co- versity, Topeka. lumbia, South Carolina. A currently unlocated watercolor version of The 39. This painting is in the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Prodigal Son, 1929, is reproduced in Charles C. Eldredge, “Prairie Prodi- 40. This painting is in the Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, gal: John Steuart Curry and Kansas” in Junker et al., John Steuart Curry, Michigan. The lithograph is listed in Sylvan Cole, The Lithographs of J. 92. Hogs Killing a Snake, ca. 1930, is in the Art Institute of Chicago. Steuart Curry (New York: Associated American Artists, 1976), cat. no. 15. 42. Cole, Lithographs, cat. no. 14.

260 Kansas History cornstalk in a dust storm; thus, they continue the the commission.44 Sketches for the murals, which, imagery of the two previously discussed drawings. as we will see, included rotunda panels depicting The panel at the upper right seems to depict oil the homestead and the building of the barbed- geysers. The three panels from the left on the lower wire fences were, as noted earlier, not presented level are, in contrast, multifigure narrative scenes. to the mural commission until November 1937. They show a woman, accompanied by a child, Thus, it seems that Curry’s plan for the Interior feeding chickens; a man sinking a fence post; and Department mural was very well advanced a seated woman with a child. The drawing on the before the artist received the commission for the upper left may also be a multifigure subject. statehouse murals and that, for two of the rotunda The two center scenes on the lower level of scenes, he simply truncated versions of the two this drawing partially repeat the imagery of The halves of the Interior Department mural. The Homestead and Building of the Barbed Wire Fence, decision to use these historical scenes regarding 1937–1939, one of two murals that Curry created the settlement of Kansas may, in fact, have for the Department of the Interior (see article’s precipitated Curry’s shift from emblematic scenes opening image). Indeed, the drawing is inscribed, to historical narrative scenes for the rotunda. most likely by a later hand, “Combination Washington Dept. of Interior Murals & Kansas Plan I/Description I State Topeka.” Curry apparently completed his urry’s November 1937 presentation to plan for the Interior Department mural before the Mural Commission consisted of he began the plan for the Topeka murals. He was sketches and a written outline detailing given the commission for the Interior Department his C plans and intentions. “Description of Murals mural by the Treasury Department’s Section of for the Kansas State Capitol” (hereafter called Painting and Sculpture on March 2, 1937. On July Description I), a text in the Archives of American 20, he was informed that his initial studies had Art, seems to be that original outline.45 It presents been approved and that a contract for the murals the statehouse murals as a historical narrative. was being issued.43 Curry did not receive the According to Mrs. Woodring, wife of former commission for the Kansas Capitol murals until Kansas Gov. Harry Hines Woodring, “The John July 19, 1937. He then made a trip to Kansas in Brown panel in the east corridor represents the August 1937 to meet people and explore ideas for beginning, and the farm scene in the west corridor represents the end of the pictorial history. . . . The eight rotunda panels fill in the gaps in the state’s 43. Letter from Edward Bruce, chief, to JSC, March 2, 1937; Letter 46 from Edward B. Rowan, superintendent, to JSC, July 3, 1937; and letter history.” from Edward B. Rowan to JSC, July 20, 1937, Curry Family Papers, To chronologically connect Tragic Prelude and Series 3, box 3, Treasury Department Section of Painting and Sculpture, Kansas Pastoral ca. 1934–1943 (hereafter box 3), folder 14, 10–12 and 15, AAA. After was a challenging task for Curry receiving the commission for the mural on March 2, Curry submit- because the rotunda’s murals must necessarily be ted studies for it “some weeks” before July 3. On July 20, Curry was presented in a circle. In Description I, he laid out informed that his initial studies were approved and that the Section of Painting and Sculpture was issuing him a contract. This corre- the eight rotunda panels as they were to stand in spondence between Curry and the Section of Painting and Sculpture relation to the doors to the east and west corridors. indicates that the section proposed very few changes to his preliminary For example, the description of the “two panels . . . at sketches. Thus, we can assume that Curry’s initial conception of the Interior Department mural was similar to the finished mural. Curry’s contract with the federal government did not preclude his reusing 44. Several newspaper articles document this trip, including Carl- imagery from The Homestead and Building of Barbed Wire Fence. This son, “Curry and Kansas: A Story of Heroic Life.” contract, dated August 10, 1937, can be found in Curry Family Papers, 45. Description I. Series 3, box 3, folder 17, Treasury Department, Section of Paintings 46. “Mrs. Woodring Is Enthusiastic about Curry’s Kansas Murals,” To- and Sculpture, Contracts and Vouchers, 1935–1939, 19–23. peka Daily State Journal, September 24, 1940, 5, State Archives, KHS, MF256.

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 261 the rising sun the pioneer minister with raised hand pronounces the last benediction. . . . (2) The Great Cattle Drives This panel depicts the great herds that for thirty years were driven from Texas to the roaring rail points of central and western Kansas.48 (Fig. 4)

These first two scenes would have shown pioneers and cowboys traveling through the unorganized territory that would become Kansas Territory in 1854. The Santa Fe Trail, though largely for trade, was also used by settlers going to New Mexico after it was acquired by the United States in 1848. The cattle drives from Texas to the future Kansas Territory began as early as 1836, ceased during the Civil War, and were revived thereafter. The next two scenes on the south wall, to the right of the east corridor, would portray Kansas settlement (Fig. 5, top row):

(1) The Homestead Before the wooden shack Fig. 4. John Steuart Curry, The Great Cattle Drives, 1937, medium sits the prairie wife paring potatoes . . . and size unknown. Kansas City Star, November 14, 1937. beyond the wide expanse of open country. the right of the East Corridor Entrance” is followed (2) Building the Barbed Wire Fences The by the description of the “two panels . . . at the building of the barbed wire fences ushered left of the East Corridor Entrance.”47 However, it in a new era. Behind their barbs grew up a appears that he actually intended for the viewer to different civilization and doomed forever the start at the door from the west corridor and follow roving life of the cattleman and wandering the murals along the south wall of the rotunda. hunter.49 Then the viewer would pass the door to the east corridor and look at the murals along the north To the left of the east corridor on the north wall wall, ending back at the west corridor door. Below, would be, in the artist’s words, The Plagues of the Description I is quoted in this order to serve as a Dust Bowl (Fig. 5, bottom row): comparison with later versions and with Curry’s sketches. (1) Like ancient Egypt, Kansas is at times beset by The south wall would extend the history in plagues. In this panel is depicted drought and Tragic Prelude by depicting scenes from the pre- grasshoppers. . . . and postsettlement eras of Kansas. On that wall, to (2) Soil Erosion and Dust Sheet erosion and the the left of the west corridor, were to be two panels: shoe string gully are two of the great calamities of our nation, and in the midwestern plains (1) Commemorating the sacrifice of life of can be added wind erosion. In the foreground those who forged westward on the Santa Fe of the panel is the clutching hand of erosion Trail. This depicts the burial of a child. Before 48. Ibid. 47. Description I. 49. Ibid.

262 Kansas History after The Homestead and Building the Barbed Wire Fences. The University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture, where Curry became the artist-in- residence in 1936, was a center for the study of soil erosion and conservation. His “significant warning” panel clearly reflects a familiarity with this research.52 On August 4, 1937, soon after he received the statehouse mural commission, Curry stated that he planned to contrast “drought ravages” with more abundant times.53 He intended to do this on the north wall of the rotunda, where “Corn and Wheat . . . two basic products of our fruitful land” would have followed the plague scenes (Fig. 6).54 These two panels of agricultural abundance logically led to the west corridor, where Curry had created Kansas Pastoral, which depicts, as noted earlier, “the ideal unmortgaged farm home,” with healthy pigs and cows and sheaves of cornstalks in rows into the distance.

Fig. 5. John Steuart Curry, The Homestead, Building the Barbed The sketches (Figs. 4-6) that Curry presented Wire Fences, Like ancient Egypt, Kansas is…beset by plagues, to the Mural Commission are now unlocated, and Soil Erosion and Dust, 1937, medium and size unknown. but they were reproduced in the press almost Topeka Daily State Journal, November 13, 1937 and Kansas City Star, November 14, 1937. immediately, and those images closely match Curry’s Description I.55 directed toward the abandoned farm home. The Mural Commission was apparently pleased Beyond it is the threatening cloud of dust. with the plan and sketches. Kansas Gov. Walter This panel is designed as a significant warning A. Huxman, chairman of the Mural Commission, and voices the concern of government and educational forces interested in preserving the 52. Ibid., 101–12; and Meyer, “Broken Ground,” 124–25 and 129–43. nation’s resources.50 53. “Mural Ideas in Kansas,” Kansas City Star, August 4, 1937, SKL, Kan L 4.12 C976. 54. Description I. As noted above, by 1936, the federal government 55. “Two of Four Panels Okayed,” Topeka Daily State Journal, November 13, and conservationists believed that the plowing of 1937, SLK, Kan L 4.12 M972/2, published The Homestead, Building the Barbed Wire Fences, and the two plague scenes. “How Panels May Appear in Place,” the prairie grasses, which had held the soil in place, Topeka Daily Capital, November 13, 1937, SLK, Kan L 4.12 M972/2, published had ultimately led to erosion and dust storms.51 Corn and Wheat. Title unknown, Kansas City Star, November 14, 1937, SLK, Curry visualizes this result of plowing by placing Kan L 4.12 M972/2, reproduced The Great Cattle Drives, The Homestead, Build- ing the Barbed Wire Fences, Soil Erosion and Dust, Corn, and Wheat. “Murals of The Plagues, and especially Soil Erosion and Dust, Kansas Art Depicted Here,” New York Times, November 27, 1937, SLK Kan L 4.12 C976, reproduced the sketch of the burial of a child on the Santa Fe Trail and The Great Cattle Drives. “All Kansans to Help Finance Curry Murals,” 50. Ibid. A larger version of Soil Erosion and Dust, c. 1937, is in the col- Hutchinson News-Herald, December 5, 1937, 12, reproduced the burial of a lection of the Birger Sandzén Memorial Gallery, Lindsborg, Kansas. The child on the Santa Fe Trail, The Great Cattle Drives (cropped), Corn, Wheat, and painting was a gift to Jack Harris, a member of the Mural Commission the two Plague scenes. Thanks to Kate Meyer for providing me with a digital and one of Curry’s biggest supporters. For this painting. see the Birger copy of this page. “Panels from the Murals for Kansas Capitol,” unidentified Sandzén Memorial Gallery website, http://sandzen.org/collections. clipping, undated, reproduced both of the Plagues, The Homestead, and the Great 51. Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 124–25. Cattle Drives, State Archives, KSH, MF256.

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 263 an Indian scene be used instead of a homestead. There is also a mural of a fence builder, proposed because Kansas changed from a cattle range to a farming section with the coming of wire fences. In its place Curry proposed to put in a panel showing the railroad builders.”59 Why these changes were proposed and accepted is not clear.60 Certainly, “Indians and the coming of the railroad” were essential to the history of Kansas, and ultimately, these scenes were incorporated into Curry’s third and final plan. But the elimination of the homestead and fence-building scenes seems odd since this would have disrupted Curry’s narrative of the state’s Fig. 6. John Steuart Curry, Corn and Wheat, 1937, medium and development from open grazing territory to size unknown. Kansas City Star, November 14, 1937. confined farming and ranching, which, in Curry’s issued the following statement: “We feel that the works, created a “different civilization and Curry murals as he has roughly outlined his plan doomed forever the roving life of the cattleman are everything that Kansas has a right to expect. and wandering hunter.”61 Moreover, it would They are conceived in a spirit of dignity and respect have broken the implicit link between farming, as to the traditions of the State, and we feel that other represented by the homestead and fence building, generations seeing them will understand the story and the erosion and dust of the Dust Bowl that of Kansas from the days of Coronado to today.”56 were, it was believed, created by farming. Elsewhere Huxman was quoted as saying, “All These proposed changes for the Topeka murals members of the commission were in attendance were incorporated into a second document, and the harmony and accord of the members “Description of Murals for the Kansas State Capitol” brought approval of the general design.”57 (Description II), which is otherwise identical to Description I. It states that two panels depicting Plan II/Description II “Plains Indians (to be completed)” would be he Mural Commission did, however,

suggest changes. In “Two Panels of Four 59. “Kansas Murals Commission Approves Plans for Murals,” Kansas Okayed,” the Topeka Daily State Journal City Star, November 12, 1937, SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976. The agreement on reportedT that the commission members “accepted these changes was confirmed by journalist A. L. Schultz: “In one instance substitutions were made by unanimous agreement. Those changes the lower two [The Plagues] and expressed a substitute the Indian of the plains and the coming of the railroad for the preference for Indians and the coming of the railroad original homestead and fence-building.” Schultz, “Special Commission.” over the top two.”58 Curry apparently acquiesced 60. It is certainly possible that by November 1937, the Mural Commission had become aware of Curry’s ideas for The Homestead to these changes. According to the Kansas City Star, and the Building of the Barbed Wire Fence. Thus. the commission may “Curry told the commission he thought two of the not have wanted Curry to duplicate subjects in the rotunda that were panels should be changed. One sketch was that of already planned for the Interior Department mural. Unfortunately, the evidence for this is inconclusive. In a January 12, 1938, letter from Jack a mother and child as figures. He suggested that Harris to JSC, Harris wrote, “I had read of your commission from the Interior Department, and am glad that you are to do it.” Curry Family Papers, Series 3, box 2, folder 40, Kansas State House Murals, 3, AAA. 56. “Murals of Kansas Art.” But it is impossible to know whether Harris “had read” of the commis- 57. Schultz, “Special Commission.” sion before the November 1937 Mural Commission meeting. 58. “Two Panels of Four Okayed.” 61. Description I.

264 Kansas History Fig. 7. John Steuart Curry, Sketch for Rotunda, 1943, oil on canvas. Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. C. L. Burt, Hutchinson, Kansas, 1957. Used by permission of the John Steuart Curry Foundation & Estate and Kiechel Fine Art, Lincoln, Nebraska.

on the wall to right of the east corridor.62 Curry rotunda murals, newspaper accounts continued must have written Description II shortly after his to include descriptions that match the sketch for November 12, 1937, presentation, because this The Homestead. For example, a 1940 newspaper change is already reflected in a November 27, article described a “pioneer woman in her lonely 1937, New York Times article, which noted that the home on the prairie, her only companions Indians murals would portray “The Plains Indians” and and the wild creatures of the prairie.”65 An article “Building the Railroad.” No mention is made here from 1941 referred to the “Homestead life with a of The Homestead or Building the Barbed Wire Fences, prairie wife paring potatoes,” while another from although the other rotunda scenes are described.63 1942 mentioned “the homestead with the prairie However, it is unclear whether Curry actually wife paring potatoes.”66 The aforementioned 1940 intended to make the changes proposed in article referred to “the coming of the railroads,” Description II. In March 1938, three months after but the 1942 account still included the theme of the the New York Times article, Description I was “barbed wire fences, that changed the cattleman published in Kansas Teacher with no mention of into a homesteader,” as a separate subject from changes as per Description II.64 Through May 1942, The Homestead. Moreover, no sketches of The Plains when Curry gave up on being able to paint the 65. Jessica Hodges, “He Talks as He Paints,” Kansas City Star, Sep- tember 30, 1940, SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976. 62. Description II. 66. Joseph Hall, “Marble Blocks Artist Curry’s Murals,” Topeka Capi- 63. “Murals of Kansas Art.” tal Journal, June 29, 1941, SLK Kan L 4.12 C976; and Leslie E. Edmonds, 64. John Steuart Curry, “Description of Murals for Kansas State Capi- “Disappointed Artist Curry Leaves Topeka,” Topeka Capital, May 24, tol,” Kansas Teacher 46, no. 4 (March 1938): 37–39, SLK, Kan L 4.12 C976. 1942, 5B, State Archives, KSH, MF256.

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 265 am preparing the panels showing the proposed sketches for the rotunda. I had to make some changes in them. These are the original sketches with two additional.”69 This indicates that he was revising his sketches. On February 18, 1943, the Topeka Capital reported that “sketches for the new Curry murals” were on display in the statehouse. The article described them as “a Kansas ‘soddie’ and the building of the first barbed wire fences, the plains Indians amazed at the first train tearing across their prairies, pioneer burial rights, the great long- horn cattle drives, the clutching hand of erosion and the abandoned farmstead, Fig. 8. John Steuart Curry, Sketch for Rotunda (Corn and Wheat), 1943, oil on the contrasting scene of fertility with canvas. Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. C. L. Burt, Hutchinson, Kansas, 1957. Used by permission of the John Steuart Curry erosion control, and two panels of the Foundation & Estate and Kiechel Fine Art, Lincoln, Nebraska. basic products, tall green corn and rich gold of ripe wheat.”70 This text accurately describes, though not in the Indians and Building the Railroad as separate scenes same order, the images in the Spencer Museum have been located.67 Thus, regardless of the fact of Art’s sketch for rotunda, which shows six of the that in Description II, Curry proposed changes to panels, and sketch for rotunda (Corn and Wheat) the rotunda murals as per the Mural Commission (Figs. 7 and 8). These works seem to be the ones suggestions, the evidence cited above may exhibited in Topeka in 1943.71 indicate that he actually had no plans to make The newspaper description and the Spencer those changes. Museum of Art works also correspond to the proposed paintings outlined in Curry’s “Kansas Plan III/Description III Murals: The Eight Panels in the Rotunda” hen Senator Cole wrote to Curry in (Description III), the revision of the rotunda plan late 1942 asking his permission to that was apparently submitted to Senator Cole reopen the rotunda murals issue, in early 1943. This document does not include CurryW agreed but was not confident about the explanations of Tragic Prelude and Kansas Pastoral prospects for the new bill.68 Nevertheless, he was because they had already been completed. In this still sufficiently dedicated to the vexed project that proposal, the panels on the south wall, to the left on January 23, 1943, he wrote to Cole, saying, “I of the west corridor, would still depict the burial of a child on the Santa Fe Trail and The Great

67. Drawings and sketches for Curry’s statehouse murals are Cattle Drives, as in Descriptions I and II. But for owned by the Kansas Museum of History, Topeka; the Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, Manhattan; and the Spencer Museum 69. Letter from JSC to Albert Cole, January 25, 1943, Series 3, box 2, of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence. folder 46, 14, AAA. 68. Letter from JSC to Albert Cole, November 24, 1942, Curry Fam- 70. “Curry Sketches for Rotunda Are on Display.” ily Papers, Series 3, box 2, folder 46, 11, AAA. 71. Description III.

266 Kansas History the spaces next to them on the south wall, to the right of the east corridor, Curry proposed two new panels, The Homestead and Building the Barbed Wire Fences (see front cover image) and The Plains Indian and the Building of the First Railroads (Fig. 9). The first new panel combined The Homestead and Building of the Barbed Wire Fences, the two panels in Description I that were discarded in Description II. In this combination, the woman peeling potatoes in front of a wooden shack would have been eliminated and replaced in the background by “a ‘soddie,’ the first building on the Homestead.”72 This composite scene would no longer resemble the Interior Department’s mural. Description III now stated specifically that the man in this image was a Civil War veteran, clearly situating him in time. The second new panel, The Plains Indians and Building of the First Railroads (Fig. 9), would have combined the two panels in Description II, “the Plains Indians (to be completed),” that were to have replaced The Homestead and Building of the Barbed Wire Fences in Description I. Regarding this new image, Curry wrote in Description III, “The railroads destroyed forever the nomadic life of the Indians,” just as he had said in Description I that fencing the plains “had doomed forever the roving life of the cattleman and wandering hunter” Fig. 9. John Steuart Curry, The Plains Indian and the Building of 73 the First Railroads, detail of Sketch for Rotunda, 1943, oil on canvas. in regard to Building the Barbed Wire Fences. Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. C. L. These two statements take on further weight Burt, Hutchinson, Kansas, 1957. Used by permission of the John Steuart when considering the fact that the government Curry Foundation & Estate and Kiechel Fine Art, Lincoln, Nebraska. and conservationists then believed, as mentioned before, that the prairie should never have been in Kansas, felt that he portrayed the “friekish” plowed in the first place. aspects of the state instead of its beauties.75 Curry Curry also proposed changes on the north wall then moved Soil Erosion and Dust into the spot to the left of the east corridor. Here he planned formerly held by that scene and paired it with a to eliminate the Plague scene of drought and panel that “shows the utility and necessity of soil grasshoppers, aspects of the Dust Bowl that, as erosion control” (Fig. 10).76 This fairly limited Kendall has pointed out, were not under human description corresponds to the Spencer Museum control.74 This was, perhaps, an attempt to mollify of Art’s sketch showing a landscape with terracing, his critics who, from the time he began to exhibit contour plowing, and, perhaps, a shelter belt of

72. Ibid. 73. Ibid. 75. See notes 7 and 8. 74. Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 109. 76. Description III.

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 267 in-residence at the University of Wisconsin College of Agriculture. During his residency, which began in late 1936, Curry planned to “do murals and paintings of current agricultural topics, particularly soil erosion, which is a pet subject of [School of Agriculture] Dean Christensen’s.”79 He, in fact, traveled with Christensen to see soil erosion projects.80 While in Wisconsin, he created at least four works of art that treat this subject, including Erosion and Contour Cropping, ca. 1937–1940 (Fig. 11).81 This painting depicts the “clutching hand of erosion” seen in both the 1937 and 1943 versions of the rotunda mural’s Soil Erosion and Dust as well as the terracing and contour plowing of the 1943 rotunda panel depicting the “the utility and necessity of soil erosion control.” Curry also portrayed terracing and contour plowing in the Rural Artist, ca. 1936–1946; in a preliminary study for Wisconsin Landscape, 1937; and in The Role of Fig. 10. John Steuart Curry, The Utility and Necessity of Soil Erosion Biochemistry in Plant and Animal Nutrition, 1941– Control, oil on canvas, detail of Sketch for Rotunda, 1943, oil on canvas. 1943, a series of murals for the biochemistry Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. C. L. 82 Burt, Hutchinson, Kansas, 1957. Used by permission of the John Steuart building at the University of Wisconsin. Curry Foundation & Estate and Kiechel Fine Art, Lincoln, Nebraska. Curry was, in fact, in the midst of painting The trees.77 As opposed to simply contrasting “drought 79. “Resident Artist: John Steuart Curry Takes Unique Post to Encour- age Rural Painting,” Literary Digest 122, no. 16 (October 17, 1936): 22–24, ravages” with more abundant times, as per as quoted in Patricia Junker, “The Life and Career of John Steuart Curry: Descriptions I and II, this third plan for the north An Annotated Chronology,” in Junker et al., John Steuart Curry, 228. wall demonstrated how these more abundant 80. For Curry’s travels with Christensen, see Schmeckebier, John Steuart Curry’s Pageant, 133; and Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, 122, times could be achieved, that is, by the adoption 124, and 155n65. of proper conservation methods.78 Thus, the “soil 81. Meyer, “Broken Ground,” 133–37, discusses the Chazen paint- erosion control” panel created a logical narrative ing but does not connect it to the two related rotunda sketches. For further discussion of Erosion and Contour Cropping, see Lauren Kroiz, link between Soil Erosion and Dust and the florid Cultivating Citizens: The Regional Work of Art in the New Deal (Oakland: Corn and Wheat panels that would have followed University of California Press, 2018), 191–92. it (Fig. 10). 82. Rural Artist, crayon on paper, is in the Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University. It is discussed in Meyer, “Broken Ground,” Curry’s addition of a scene that “shows the 128–29. The preliminary study for Wisconsin Landscape, 1937, is repro- utility and necessity of soil erosion control” was duced and discussed in Junker, “Twilight of Americanism’s Golden undoubtedly related to his experiences as artist- Age,” in Junker et al., John Steuart Curry, 203–04. The landscape section of The Role of Biochemistry in Plant and Animal Nutrition is reproduced and discussed in Kroiz, Cultivating Citizens, 192–93. Views of all sections 77. Meyer, “Broken Ground,” 143. However, the tree to the left does of The Role of Biochemistry in Plant and Animal Nutrition can be seen in not necessarily represent a shelter belt. Trees were often used as fram- Joan Gorman, “Demolition to Restoration: The Conservation of John ing devices in American landscape paintings that were influenced by Steuart Curry’s Biochemistry Murals,” lecture sponsored by the Wiscon- the well-known seventeenth-century French artist Claude Lorrain or sin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, which can be viewed at the any of his numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century followers. University of Wisconsin Biochemistry Department website, https:// 78. Meyer, “Broken Ground,” 142–43. biochem.wisc.edu/content/john-steuart-curry-murals-virtual-tour.

268 Kansas History Role of Biochemistry when he revised his sketches for the rotunda murals in 1943. Indeed, as Meyer has pointed out, contour plowing may have been more useful in the rolling hills of Wisconsin than in the plains of Kansas, yet contour plowing was employed in both the eastern and western parts of Curry’s home state.83 Kendall has suggested that “one wave of opposition to the Curry murals” consisted of “those farmers who were angry and defensive from being under attack by agricultural reformers and conservationists,” who, as mentioned earlier, held that plowing the prairie had caused the Dust Fig. 11. John Steuart Curry, Erosion and Contour Cropping, 1937-1940, oil 84 This may have been true in 1937, on canvas. Courtesy of Chazen Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin, Madi- Bowl. son, Wisconsin. Gift of Mrs. John Steuart. when Curry presented his original sketches of the Plagues of drought, grasshoppers, soil erosion, and dust, but by 1943, when he presented Indians and Building of the First Railroads. These his third program, conservation methods had combination scenes restored Curry’s original been widely adopted, and the rains had returned narrative in which the settling of the plains, with to the Plains.85 The scene of Soil Erosion and Dust homesteads, fences, and now railroads, followed had, in fact, become part of Kansas history and, the presettlement scenes of the Santa Fe Trail and thus, much less controversial. the Great Cattle Drives. Moreover, the restoration Curry also reworked the Wheat sketch in his of the image of the homestead, here in the form of final plan. In his 1937 sketch two large, dark trees a “soddie,” and the barbed-wire fence reinstated frame a cornucopia, but in the 1943 sketch, the trees the notion of farming/plowing as the cause of the are replaced by a golden shock of wheat, giving Soil Erosion and Dust of the next scene. Additionally, the later sketch a much brighter tonality than the the north wall would have been more thematically earlier one. Corn and Wheat, the final two panels coherent than in the earlier plans because the of the rotunda series, would lead naturally to conservation scene would have created a logical Kansas Pastoral in the west corridor, which would narrative link between Soil Erosion and Dust and complete the narrative of prosperity on the farm. Corn and Wheat. The intellectual coherence of the Curry’s third plan for the rotunda had several planned rotunda scenes in general was echoed in advantages over the first two. He created a more their compositions, in which each of the pairs of thorough history of Kansas, compressing four panels would have had a vertical shape to the left scenes, two from the first plan and two from the balanced by a vertical shape to the right. second, into two new scenes, The Homestead and Unfortunately, despite his proposed changes, the Building of the Barbed Wire Fences and The Plains Curry was never able to finish the statehouse murals because of continued legislative opposition. 83. Meyer, “Broken Ground,” 146, and Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, On March 1, 1943, the Topeka Journal reported that Rooted in Dust: Surviving Drought and Depression in Southwestern Kansas Senator Cole’s appropriation bill had not been (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 121–22. 84. Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism,124–25. voted out of the Ways and Means Committee “on 85. Riney-Kehrberg, Rooted in Dust, 121–22. grounds of aesthetics and finances. The murals

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 269 commission originally started the project with From the beginning, he had put considerable voluntary contributions, several senators objected, thought into these eight scenes, first envisioning and the state is always getting stuck with them as single-figure emblems of Kansas and then ‘voluntary’ propositions when the contributions developing them as narrative historical vignettes. run out.” The Journal continued, “While the When called upon by Senator Cole in late 1942 to proposed eight panels generally were approved resubmit his rotunda sketches, he did not simply by the legislative art critics, several members send the sketches he had done in 1937 but, in short still professed inability to stomach the main John order, redid them to present a more comprehensive Brown panel. In fact, one senator wanted to adopt statement of Kansas’s history. But all for naught, an amendment forcing the artist to tear down the leaving Tragic Prelude and Kansas Pastoral as the existing murals. “Whew,” exclaimed Senator Cole inexplicably disconnected fragments that stand after the meeting. “Guess I was lucky to get out today. of there with a whole skin.”86 It seems significant This study of Curry’s written descriptions that the “legislative art critics,” whoever they may and sketches for the statehouse rotunda murals have been, approved of the new panels and that, at allows the reader to understand Curry’s creative least in this article, no criticism of the new rotunda process and demonstrates the care and thought scenes was expressed. But financial considerations that went into these proposed murals. Such and Curry’s John Brown still stood in the way of thoughtful study went into all of the paintings in the mural program’s completion.87 the statehouse project, especially the John Brown As noted earlier, in April 1939, the Executive panel, as has been demonstrated in a number of Committee of the statehouse “hit the ceiling” sources.89 Did Curry expend extra effort, both when the members realized that the marble in mental and otherwise, on these murals because the rotunda needed to be removed in order for they were especially significant to him, being in Curry to complete his murals. Mural Commission his home state? Unfortunately, little scholarship member Jack Harris reported this to Curry, who has been devoted to Curry’s process in developing asked Harris to again appeal to the committee his other mural projects, making it difficult to for the marble’s removal. Curry wrote, “I think compare the Kansas murals to them.90 Fortunately, it would be very wise to point out to them first however, thousands of Curry’s drawings exist exactly what they are cutting out when they cut in public collections, such as the Worcester Art out these panels. It really takes the heart out of the Museum and the Beach Museum of Art, Kansas whole mural project.”88 Clearly, Curry considered State University, and Curry’s mural projects are the rotunda murals essential to his mural program. documented in the Curry Family Papers at the

86. “$50,000 for Coyotes, Naught for Murals,” Topeka Journal, March 1, 1943, State Archives, KHS, MF256. 89. Kendall, Rethinking Regionalism, reproduces many studies for 87. Curry’s humiliation at the hands of Kansans was not over. The Tragic Prelude and Kansas Pastoral. For Curry’s process in developing Topeka Capital reported on March 4, 1943, that statehouse page boys had these murals, see especially 60–64, 74, 77–79, 87, 100 and 104–06. The successfully passed a mock bill “(1) appropriating $1.15 from the state author’s 2013–2014 exhibition Watching Curry Work at the Mulvane Art sewage disposal fund to complete the murals; (2) placing them in all Museum featured thirteen of the nineteen drawings for the statehouse Statehouse rest rooms; (3) and making public apologies to frequenters murals owned by the Kansas Museum of History. Text labels discussed of such rooms for such an imposition but explaining there was no place Curry’s process in creating those murals. else suitable to put them.” “Page Boys in Mock Session Vote $1.15 to Fin- 90. A notable exception is Elizabeth Seaton’s discussion of the de- ish Murals,” Topeka Capital, March 4, 1943, State Archives, KHS, MF256. velopment of Curry’s Westward Movement: Justice of the Plains, his 1937 88. Letter from JSC to John Harris, April 19, 1939, Curry Family. mural for the Department of Justice Building. See Ownings and Seaton, Papers, Series 3, box 2, folder 41, 18, AAA. John Steuart Curry, 31–35 and 70–71.

270 Kansas History Archives of American Art and in the papers of assessment of artistic competency is notoriously commissioning institutions.91 These resources will slippery. To give an obvious example, were medieval allow further study of Curry’s murals. sculptors incompetent in their depiction of the human Some recent art historians, notably Lauren body, or were they seeking an expressive quality for Kroiz and Henry Adams, have questioned Curry’s which anatomical accuracy was irrelevant? Curry’s competency as an artist: Kroiz called the formal process in conceptualizing and painting his many aspects of his art “amateurish,” and Adams noted sketches for the statehouse murals was anything but that his technique was “embarrassing.”92 But the amateurish, and further study of his many drawings will surely bear this out.

91. The Beach Museum, Kansas State University, owns almost nine hundred drawings by Curry. E-mail from Elizabeth Seaton to the author, August 19, 2020. The Worcester Art Museum owns over six thousand drawings by Curry, some of which were shown in its 2002 ex- hibition Collective Images: The Sketchbooks of John Steuart Curry, https:// www.worcesterart.org/exhibitions/past/curry.html. The Curry Family Papers are cited in note 2. Additional records of Curry’s murals are in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. For example, records of Curry’s Interior Department mural, discussed above, can be found in Record Group 121, Records of the Public Buildings Service, Completed Murals and Sculptures in the United States Post Offices and Other Federal Buildings, 1935–1943 (CMS 121) and Record Group 121, box 119, Pl-110, entry 133, Case Files Concerning Embellishments of Federal Buildings, 1934–1943, among others. E-mail to the author from Gene Morris, Archives II Textural Reference Branch (RR2RR), May 13, 2020. 92. Lauren Kroiz, “‘A Jolly Lark for Amateurs’: John Steuart Curry’s Pedagogy of Painting,” American Art 29, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 30; and Henry Adams, “Space, Weather, Myth and Abstraction in the Art of John Steuart Curry,” in Junker et al., John Steuart Curry, 112–14 and 129n14.

A New Chronology of the Development of John Steuart Curry’s Murals for the Rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol 271