Skip to main content

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Advanced Search
Study for Westward Movement by John Steuart Curry
Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography
Study for Westward Movement
Photo CreditCarol M. Highsmith Photography

Study for Westward Movement

Artist
Yearc.1935
Classification painting
Dimensions26 1/2" x 38 1/2"
Credits New Deal Art Program
Fine Arts Collection
U.S. General Services Administration
Location
  • One of two lunette-shaped murals.  Justice of the Plains:  The Movement Westward. The mural depicts a central family in the midst of a crowd of people moving on horseback, on foot, and in Conestoga wagon across a grassy plain.  Facing the hardships of the trail and the dangers of the unknown, improvising their rough justice to meet their social needs.  The focus is on the hardy pioneers who opened up the western United States for settlers.  The mural illustrates a passage of American history that is particularly stirring to the American imagination.  The mural is carried out with dramatic energy. 


    Karal Ann Marling associates this mural with the depression era photographs of Dorothea Lange: "the lonesome whistle that called the family away, go somewhere else and start afresh echoed through a Mural America obsessed with the migrations of the frontier era. This is the Depression's classical paean to American restlessness and hope. We see families of pioneers with their covered wagons and cattle facing the hardships of the trail and the dangers of the unknown. The heroic American family is depicted with the father in the lead, walking off towards the future and the setting sun. The mother stands behind, cradling a baby with her head bowed; the classic Pioneer Madonna.