Mississippi Noah

Maker John Steuart Curry (American, 1897 - 1946)

Collections

American Print Selections

ClassificationsPRINTS

Date1934

Mediumlithograph printed on black on white wove paper

Dimensions9 7/8 x 13 3/4 in. (25.1 x 34.9 cm.)

SignedSigned in lower left of recto in plate: J. Curry Signed and dated in graphite: 1934

InscribedSigned in lower left of recto in plate: J. Curry Signed and dated in graphite: 1934

Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of Mrs. Homer D. Crotty.

Status

Not on view

Label TextThe title suggests that the father's prayers for his family to be delivered to dry land will be answered. Curry's direct inspiration for the subject was the flooding of the Kaw River in Kansas in 1932, but he decided to set the scene along the Mississippi River, which experienced devastating floods in 1927. The Mississippi flood of 1927 hit African-American communities particularly hard and factored in the large migration of blacks from the South to northern cities in the 1920s and 1930s.

Object number91.284.15