Danbury Fair 1930

John Steuart Curry made this print, *Danbury Fair*, using lithography. Look at all those marks, they make the image look almost velvety. The way the marks build up, dark against light, gives you the sense of a huge crowd and a warm summer day. The figures at the front are solid and present, but as your eye travels back into the image, the crowd becomes a mass of dots. See that figure on the right with the bunches of grapes and fruit spilling out, and how that detail contrasts with the faceless people in the background? It reminds me of some history paintings where the important people are really vivid in the foreground, but the rest of the scene is just a blur. Curry’s process allows for these contrasts. It’s a really lovely piece. It reminds me of Thomas Hart Benton, maybe because they are both part of that Regionalist scene. It’s hard to pin these guys down, they had a lot going on.