Artist: John Steuart Curry
Artist Dates: 1897-1946
Signed Within Plate: Yes
Date of Work: 1942
Description: Curry’s image of a young farmer in a Kansas wheat field with two children playing at his side symbolized the power of American agriculture. Analogizing the heartland of America with “The Good Earth” and imploring Americans to keep it that way Curry’s primary artistic contribution to the war effort. Curry is known as one of America’s greatest painters of the heartland and for depicting in his home state of Kansas. He, along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood, were hailed as the three great painters of American Regionalism of the first half of the 20th century. This collection is from Dr. David Orzeck by descent to his daughter Lida Orzeck and the entire collection is offered without reserve. Lida Orzeck came across more than 750 vintage war posters from World War I and World War II in her family’s home basement that her father, David Orzeck, a Brooklyn doctor, had meticulously collected. Discovered in 1970, the posters — of which few pristine prints remain with the exception of the National Archives and the Library of Congress — were in mint condition, neatly catalogued and folded in brown wrapping paper from grocery stores.
Size: 14"L x 22"H
Weight: <1lb
Provenance: Dr. David Orzeck
Condition: Poster has original fold marks and has not been exposed to sunlight, thus preserving the vibrant colors. Recently mounted on archival paper (reversible).
Artist Biography: John Steuart Curry was born in Dunavant, Kansas, and, after training at the Chicago Art Institute, the Kansas City Art Institute and Paris’s Academie Julian, major publications such as the Saturday Evening Post gainfully employed his talent for illustration. While teaching at the Art Student’s League and Cooper Union in New York City, Curry rejected the impersonal quality of industrialism to favor subject matter reflective of his agrarian background. Moreover, the circus spectacle that he enjoyed in the rural county fairs inspired him to tour with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, from which were borne a series of sketches, watercolors and paintings that captured the rich pageantry of carnival life.
Curry was commissioned for several mural projects: the Department of the Interior and Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., as well as the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka. Their subject matter reflected Curry’s desire to create art meaningful to the American people. His work is also installed in numerous museums, including the Whitney and Metropolitan Museums in New York.
In the words of Harry Wickey: “One is convinced that the story Curry paint[ed] actually happened. It seems to me that this fulfills Walt Whitman’s hope and prophecy of a truly great native art growing out of American life.”


Meta: Poster, WWI, WWII, Military, Militaria, Army, Navy, Marines, AirForce, Propaganda.