Ajax (painting) explained

Ajax
Artist:John Steuart Curry
Year:1936–1937
Medium:Oil on canvas
Height Metric:92
Width Metric:122.5
Height Imperial:36
Width Imperial:48
Metric Unit:cm
Imperial Unit:in
City:Washington, D.C.
Museum:Smithsonian American Art Museum

Ajax is an oil-on-canvas painting by the American artist John Steuart Curry, created in 1936–1937. It depicts a well-fed Hereford bull with two cowbirds on his back. The painting is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, in Washington, D.C.[1]

Creation

The painting was made with the intention to reassure Americans after the Dust Bowl years. According to Curry's friend Reginald Marsh, it was really a self-portrait.[2]

Legacy

Curry featured Ajax the bull in several of his works, such as the mural Kansas Pastoral. The subject also became a target for mockery among those who opposed regionalist painting and considered it superficial. The satirist Marshall Glasier mocked both Ajax and Curry's position at the University of Wisconsin with his 1948 painting John Steuart Curry and the University of Wisconsin Bull-Breeding Machine.[3]

Marianne Moore mentions Ajax in her poem "The Buffalo".[4]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Ajax. Smithsonian American Art Museum. 2017-09-13.
  2. Book: 1998. John Steuart Curry: Inventing the Middle West. Hudson Hills. 105. 9781555951399.
  3. Book: 2006. Got Cow?: Cattle in American Art 1820-2000. Hudson River Museum. 12–13. 9780943651323.
  4. Book: Moore, Marianne. Marianne Moore

    . Marianne Moore. 1994. Complete Poems. Penguin Books. 27. 9781101127476.