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Ajax
1936-37
John Steuart Curry
Born: Dunavant, Kansas 1897
Died: Madison, Wisconsin 1946
oil on canvas
36 1/4 x 48 1/4 in. (92 x 122.5 cm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Gift of Peter and Paula Lunder
2001.95
Smithsonian American Art Museum
2nd Floor, North Wing
Curry created this painting of green pastures and fat cattle to reassure Americans worn down by the Dust Bowl years. A prize bull fills the canvas, grazing contentedly in meadows that fall away on all sides. Cowbirds light daintily on his back, feeding on the insects that would otherwise torment him. This image slyly evokes the myth of Ajax, the Trojan hero who went mad and slew all of his army’s cattle, thinking they were his enemies. Curry's Ajax stands between the viewer and the herd, his one wary eye suggesting that the cows might get their revenge.
Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006
Keywords
Animal - cattle
Animal - portrait - Ajax
Landscape - farm
painting
paint - oil
fabric - canvas
About John Steuart Curry
Born: Dunavant, Kansas 1897 Died: Madison, Wisconsin 1946
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