The Homestead and the Building of the Barbed Wire Fences (Mural Study for Interior Building, General Land Office, Washington, D.C.)

John Steuart Curry was an American painter known for large-scale murals and canvases depicting rural American life, particularly scenes of the Midwest and Great Plains. Working primarily in oil, he developed a figurative style rooted in social realism that captured agricultural labor, dramatic weather events, and small-town community rituals with formal intensity and emotional directness. His monumental public commissions, including works for the Department of the Interior and state capitols, established him as a leading muralist of the 1930s and 1940s. Curry's compositions balanced dynamic movement with a precise attention to regional specificity, avoiding sentimentality while celebrating the dignity of working communities.

Dunavant, KS, United States