Tornado over Kansas

Tornado over Kansas
Artist	John Steuart Curry
Year	1929
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	117.5 cm × 153.35 cm (46.25 in × 60.375 in)[1]
Location	Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, Michigan, US

Tornado over Kansas is a 1929 oil-on-canvas painting by the American Regionalist painter John Steuart Curry. It depicts a dramatic scene in which a family races for shelter as a tornado approaches their farm, and has compositional connections to Curry's earlier 1928 painting Baptism in Kansas. The artist is believed to have been influenced by Baroque art and photographs of tornadoes. He developed a fear of natural disasters and a reverence towards God during his childhood, both of which are apparent in the painting.

Following its 1930 debut, Tornado over Kansas was considered a notable Regionalist work, but native Kansans disliked the choice of subject matter. Although the painting won awards and was lauded by some, others criticized Curry's amateur style of painting. Curry's work attracted criticism from contemporary painters Stuart Davis and Thomas Hart Benton, and logical inconsistencies and technical errors in the composition have been noted.

Tornado over Kansas is among several of Curry's works depicting natural disasters in Kansas, including the 1930 painting After the Tornado and the 1932 lithographs The Tornado. It has been widely reproduced in publications including Time and Life magazines, and is now among Curry's best-known works. Since 1935, the painting has remained in the Muskegon Museum of Art.