John Brown

John Brown — John Steuart Curry. 1939.

Medium: Lithograph in black on cream wove paper. Dimensions: Plate: 37.9 × 27.6 cm (14 15/16 × 10 7/8 in.); Sheet: 46.7 × 33.7 cm (18 7/16 × 13 5/16 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

Based on The Tragic Prelude , Curry’s mural for the rotunda of the Kansas State Capitol, this lithograph portrays the abolitionist martyr John Brown, best remembered for his failed attempt to incite a slave uprising by raiding a military arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859. In Curry’s image Brown’s arms are outstretched, and he towers above a crouched African American to his left. Curry modeled Brown’s head on Michelangelo Buonarotti’s sculpture of Moses, linking Brown’s abolitionist zeal to religious fervor. In the distance, a tornado and wildfires foreshadow the American Civil War.

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.