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 was 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 seem apparent in
the painting. Following its 1930 debut, the painting 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. It is among several of Curry's works depicting
tornadoes, including a set of 1932 lithographs. Tornado over Kansas has been widely
reproduced in publications including Time and Life magazines, and is now among
Curry's best-known works.

In Tornado over Kansas, sometimes referred to as just The Tornado,[2] an incoming

tornado towers in the background as part of a dark storm. A distressed Kansan farm
family in the foreground hurries to enter their storm cellar. Nearest the entry is
a green-faced mother cradling her infant. Close by, a red-headed father hurries his
daughter and yells at his sons. The two sons are distracted with rescuing farm
animals: one holds onto a black cat and another brings a litter of puppies followed
closely by their canine mother.[3][4] Panicked horses can be seen beyond the farm's
buildings.[5] In the midst of the storm and chaos, a complacent chicken refuses to
move.[6]

The painting's tornado is regarded for its physical accuracy, an accomplishment

that was possibly aided by first-hand descriptions and photographs.[7] The art
historian Lauren Kroiz, however, noted multiple "compositional perplexities". The
placement of the son with the cat behind the porch steps suggests that the family
ran along the path covered in wooden boards, but a chained wooden gate blocks that
path. The filled metal tub beside the porch indicates recent rainfall, yet no other
parts of the scene appear wet. Finally, all of the painting's figures cast shadows
except, inexplicably, for the mother.[4]

Tornado over Kansas is described as an example of Regionalist painting: by the mid-

1930s, art critics were identifying any depictions of daily life in the rural
Midwest as "regionalist".[8] The work illustrates a "direct representation" of the
artist's own land in favor of the "introspective abstractions" of contemporary
European painting,[9] which—according to a 1934 Time article on the contemporary
U.S. art scene—were qualities characteristic of Regionalism.[10]