John Brown

1939

John Steuart Curry captures the fierce abolitionist John Brown mid-shout, his wild hair and flowing beard perfectly mirroring the chaotic tornado swirling in the sky behind him. Painted in 1939 during the American Regionalism movement, this dramatic portrait was actually rejected by the Kansas State Capitol because officials thought it was too violent and didn't show the state in a dignified light! Instead of a calm hero, Curry gives us a fiery, almost apocalyptic figure, with covered wagons and a wide-eyed onlooker at his feet, perfectly capturing the turbulent and bloody era of 'Bleeding Kansas'.

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