Self-portrait

Curry was born on a farm near the town of Dunavant (near Oskaloosa, in northeast Kansas) and spent his youth in Kansas before leaving for art school in Kansas City, Missouri, and later, Chicago, Illinois. He received major attention in 1931, when the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York purchased Baptism in Kansas. In the 1930s, Curry, along with Thomas Hart Benton from Missouri and Grant Wood from Iowa, earned national acclaim for his Midwestern imagery.