Circus Elephants

1932

John Steuart Curry

Artist, American, 1897 - 1946

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John Steuart Curry, an American regionalist from Kansas, painted the popular Circus Elephants in 1932 in his Westport, Connecticut, studio. For three months during the spring of that year Curry accompanied the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus on its tour of New England. The resulting sketches served as the basis for a number of important paintings and lithographs. The artist explained in a radio interview that while he was attracted to the elephants’ remarkable bulk, he was particularly fascinated with “those shining beady eyes” and thought it was “a little disconcerting to see this brilliant animation in such a massive form.” Curry compared them to the eyes of the far less exotic barnyard pig, commenting: “You don't see the eye at first but then suddenly you become conscious of its gleaming presence buried in the shadow of the ear.” When Circus Elephants was illustrated in Life in 1943, the caption praised Curry for his success in conveying “a feeling of balance, movement and bulk, one of the most difficult jobs he ever tackled.”

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Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  American Paintings, 1900–1945: Circus Elephants, 1932

This nearly square painting shows an industrial area with buildings, storage silos, a smokestack, and railroad tracks. A mound of brown dirt or other material is in shadow in the lower left corner of the painting. Next to the mound, railroad tracks extend diagonally from the lower center of the painting into the distance to our right. The tracks end at a white building with staggered gray rooflines to our right in the distance. A tall terracotta-red smokestack rises high beyond the white building, smoke pouring out of its top and blending into the clouds above. Just beyond the mound of dirt, piles of white material, perhaps in unseen bins, line the railroad track to our left and lead back to a row ten interconnected, coral-orange silos. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and it is lined with a row of long white and gray warehouses. The artist signed and dated the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “Sheeler 31.”

Scholarly Series:  American Paintings, 1900–1945

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Walker Gallery, New York); purchased by Mrs. Grace Hendrick Eustis [later Mrs. Neill Phillips, d. 1966], New York, by 1939;[1] her second husband, Admiral Neill Phillips [d. 1978], Upperville, Virginia; gift 1976 to NGA.
[1] According to Peyton Boswell Jr., Modern American Painting, New York, 1939: 205.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1933

  • An Exhibition of Paintings of the Circus by John Steuart Curry, Ferargil Galleries, 1933, no. 3, as Elephants.

1939

  • Loan Exhibition of Drawings and Paintings by John Steuart Curry, The Lakeside Press Galleries, Chicago, 1939, no. 35, as Elephants.

1947

  • John Steuart Curry, 20 Years of His Art, Associated American Artists, New York, 1947, no. 12.

1981

  • Center Ring: The Artist: Two Centuries of Circus Art, Milwaukee Art Museum; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; New York State Museum, Albany; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1981-1982, no. 31.

  • Persistance of Regionalism: John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, Cedar Rapids Art Center; Edwin A. Ulrich Museum, Wichita State Univesity; University of Missouri Museum, 1981, no. 31, repro.

1998

  • John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West, Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison; M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1998-1999, pl. 24, fig. 8.

2001

  • Images from the World Between: The Circus in Twentieth-Century American Art, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota; Austin Museum of Art, 2001-2002, fig. 116.

2010

  • Circus! Art and Science Under the Big Top, Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Greenwich, Connecticut, 2010-2011, no catalogue.

Bibliography

1936

  • Luce, Henry R., John Shaw Billings, and Daniel Longwell, eds. "Curry of Kansas." Life 1, no. 1 (23 November 1936): 28-31, color repro.

1940

  • Boswell, Peyton. Modern American Painting. New York, 1940: 62, 138, color repro.

1943

  • Schmeckebier, Laurence. John Steuart Curry's Pageant of America. New York, 1943: 207, 210-211, fig. 237.

1980

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 141, repro.

1981

  • Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: 227, repro. 229.

  • Czestochowski, Joseph S. John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood: A Portrait of Rural America. Columbia, MO, 1981: 56, 125, fig. 31.

1987

  • Jaffe, Irma B. "Religious Content in the Painting of John Steuart Curry." Winterthur Portfolio 22, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 33, 36-38, fig. 16.

1992

  • American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 155, repro.

1995

  • Kirshon, John W., and Tom Anderson, eds. Chronicle of America. London and New York, 1995: 656, repro.

1998

  • Junker, Patricia A. John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West. Exh. cat. Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1998-1999. New York, 1998:15, 125, pl. 24, fig. 8.

2001

  • Gustafson, Donna. Images from the World Between: The Circus in Twentieth-Century Art. Exh. cat. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL.; Austin Museum of Art, Cambridge, MA, 2001-2002. London, 2001: no. 31, pl. 116.

Inscriptions

lower right: John Steuart Curry / 1932

Wikidata ID

Q20192870

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