Sanctuary

John Steuart Currys Sanctuary from 1944 is a lithograph that depicts a scene of wildlife taking refuge in a sanctuary, a subject that combines the Regionalist painters commitment to the American landscape with a more contemplative and less satirical approach than his better-known scenes of rural life. Curry, who along with Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood formed the triumvirate of American Regionalist painters, spent his career depicting the people, animals, and landscapes of his native Kansas and the Midwest. Sanctuary, created in the final year of Currys life, depicts a group of deer or birds taking shelter in a protected area of the landscape, rendered with the same directness and sympathy that he brought to his scenes of tornadoes, circuses, and baptisms. The year 1944, during World War II, gives the title Sanctuary an additional resonance beyond its natural history meaning, suggesting a place of refuge from the violence and disruption of global conflict. The lithographic medium, with its capacity for rich blacks and subtle tonal gradations, allows Curry to create the atmospheric depth and textural specificity of fur, feathers, and foliage that give the scene its sense of observed reality. The composition, which places the sanctuary in a landscape of fields and trees that is recognizably Midwestern, grounds the idea of sanctuary in the specific landscape that Curry spent his career celebrating.

Currys lithographs are important contributions to the tradition of American Regionalist printmaking, and Sanctuary, with its theme of refuge and protection, resonated with wartime audiences who were themselves seeking sanctuary from global conflict. The lithograph medium allowed Currys images to reach a wider audience than his paintings alone.

A 1944 lithograph by Curry depicting wildlife in a sanctuary, combining Regionalist observation with a theme of refuge that resonated with wartime audiences, rendered in the rich blacks and atmospheric depth of the lithographic medium.