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John Brown & Freedom. Aware that a successful mural must grandly tell a story that inspires a multitude, Painter Curry picked for his latest jobs two subjects that would be regarded by most Americans as noble episodes in the U.S. epic. At the University of Wisconsin he told the story of Negro emancipation, using the symbolic figures of slaves and soldiers marching toward the sunlight over the bodies of the Civil War's dead. For Topeka's State Capitol he laid out a series of panels that would recount the drama of Kansas' history in three big acts. Act I, dominated by the gigantic, furious figure of John Brown (see center cut, bottom p. 49), told the story of Kansas' early settlement. Act II (eight panels designed for the Capitol's rotunda) depicted the life of the Kansas homesteader, defending his tough, barbedwire-fenced farm from storms, plagues, erosion and dust, planting the newly cleared soil with corn and wheat, watching the great Texas cattle trains as they bellowed and shouldered their way to the roaring rail points of the West. Act III showed the pastoral prosperity of modern Kansas, the industry of the oilfields, the miles of waving wheat lit by the setting Kansas sun, the sturdy dignity of the Kansas farm.
In painting this gigantic panorama, Muralist Curry discovered that all his problems were not concerned with paint. The Kansas Capitol was thronged with crusty Kansans who complained about everything from the blood on John Brown's hands to the shape of Curry's Hereford bulls. Boosters objected to his realistic Kansas tornadoes. Informed that pigs' tails do not curl when they are eating, and that he had curled them the wrong way anyhow, patient Painter Curry took a day off to observe pigs' behinds.
Biggest controversy of all arose when Painter Curry asked permission to remove some expensive Italian marble from the capitol's rotunda to make way for the big panels of Act II. The Kansas State Executive Council seethed with debate on the relative value of marble v. murals, finally decided in favor of marble. Curry left out Act II entirely, refused to sign his mural and left for Madison in a huff. Whether Act II will ever be painted still remains for Kansas' officials to decide.
But even in its present incomplete form, John Steuart Curry's history of Kansas remains one of the most impressive murals to be seen anywhere in the U.S.