Focus on this artwork and discuss the Reception and provenance.
The painting was met with universal critical acclaim when first exhibited in 1930 at the Whitney Studio Club where it won a second-place award. It received another second-place prize at the 1933 Carnegie International exhibition in Pittsburgh. A 1931 exhibition at a show of Curry's work in Wichita, Kansas, was less successful. Two years later, a Time article on the exhibition described Curry's tornado as a "giant cornucopia" and wrote that Kansans found the painting "uncivic". Marling explained this negative reaction, writing that locals did not want to see "[their state exposed] to opprobrium on account of a twister or two", especially by an artist native to the state. For example, Elsie Nuzman Allen—the art-collecting wife of former Kansas governor Henry Justin Allen—complained that Curry painted cyclones and other "freakish subjects" instead of "the glories of his home State".In 1934, Time magazine featured a color reproduction of the painting as part of an article on the contemporary U.S. art scene. It described Curry as "the greatest painter of Kansas" and Tornado over Kansas as one of his most famous works. The article did note that many Kansans were irritated by his paintings, as they believed that the subject matter "[was] best left untouched". Due to the magazine's readership of 485,000 during the 1930s, Time helped give Regionalist works a national audience while also eliciting resentment among some over the art movement's sudden popularity. For example, the American modernist painter Stuart Davis objected to Time's portrayal of Tornado over Kansas and other Regionalist paintings. In 1935, Davis even accused Curry of behaving "as though painting were a jolly lark for amateurs, to be exhibited in county fairs." Those who agreed with Davis included critics, historians, and even some of Curry's own friends who considered his paintings to be "labored", "conventional", or "embarrassing".The amateurish draftsmanship was noted by scholars including Kroiz, who wrote that Curry's use of color created "a riot of tertiary hues that confuse the viewer's eye". She described the work's green-blue shadows as "strange", and believed that the lighter halo-like region around the father's head was due to a mistake made while Curry was painting in the sky. Thus, Kroiz found that the painting is in stark contrast to more technically proficient works by the contemporary Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton. Benton even lamented that Curry's work sometimes had "a touch of vulgarity and cheapness". Curry himself admitted to both Tornado over Kansas's compositional shortcomings and his then lack of technical expertise, revealing what scholars interpreted as possible signs of the artist's depression, stress, and self-doubt. Nonetheless, Curry's openness instructed the public, and Kroiz believed it helped make painting more approachable for amateurs and common people. Sweeney was less critical than Kroiz in his assessment of the painting, describing Curry as "the least polemical and chauvinistic" of the Regionalists and writing that Curry's color and methods were "extremely sophisticated" in Tornado over Kansas.In 1931, real estate broker H. Tracy Kneeland offered to purchase Tornado over Kansas. In a letter to Curry, Kneeland explained his attraction to the work:
I find ... a certain native quality which interests me because I was born and brought up in Michigan and while I have never seen a tornado of this kind I can well remember school being let out and running for dear life for home, with the branches torn off the trees ... the whole picture seems to strike a home chord in me.
Nevertheless, Tornado over Kansas was acquired in 1935 by the Hackley Art Gallery (now the Muskegon Museum of Art) from Ferargil Galleries, a venue for exhibitions of Curry's work during the early 1930s.Laurence Schmeckebier wrote in his 1943 biography of Curry that Tornado over Kansas was its artist's "best known and in many ways his greatest painting." The work was widely reproduced in surveys of American art published in the 1930s and 1940s. It has appeared in over 150 publications, including the 1936 first issue of Life magazine, and the 1996 film Twister. Because of its artistic and cultural significance, Tornado over Kansas was described by the Muskegon Museum of Art as a "national treasure" and a defining work of Curry's career and the Regionalist movement.
Regionalist American modernist Henry Justin Allen tornado Wichita, Kansas Muskegon Museum of Art Pittsburgh Kansans Thomas Hart Benton Life Stuart Davis Time Twister Carnegie International Kansas Tornado