The Fugitive

A Black man shelters in a tree while a pursuing group moves through a clearing below. His body occupies most of the height of The Fugitive , yet the small figures beneath him determine the danger of the scene. John Steuart Curry places the viewer close to the person being hunted, with the pursuers visible at a much greater distance.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum owns an impression of this 1935 lithograph, accession 1972.41, given by Adelyn D. Breeskin. ^[1] Its subject belongs to Curry's sustained engagement with racial violence. The print brings together a closely observed figure, a dense woodland setting and the threat of lynching without showing the violence's final outcome.

A figure among the branches

The man's torso rises along the left side of the trunk, while his arms extend into the foliage above. His feet rest on a lower branch. The pose stretches his body between these supports, making shelter appear physically demanding. He must hold his position within an irregular structure rather than stand securely on the ground.

The exposed lower leg and foot make the effort of balancing especially clear. The toes meet a slanting branch, while the long line of the shin leads back towards the torso. Above, the hands reach into the canopy. These small points of contact matter because so much of the body remains suspended between them.

Curry gives the figure both prominence and partial concealment. Light catches the front of the body and the extended arms, helping them emerge from the darker tree. Elsewhere, the outlines meet dense areas of leaves, bark and shadow. It takes a moment to separate the man's form from the structure supporting him, just as the setting offers concealment without removing his vulnerability.

The upward turn of the head is particularly important. It directs attention away from the pursuers and towards the upper branches. Combined with the spread arms, it allows a religious association: the Smithsonian's interpretation connects the pose with Christ's Crucifixion. ^[10] This is a reading of the image's expressive form, rather than a literal identification of the man as a biblical figure.

The pose can therefore carry two kinds of meaning at once. It belongs to someone trying to remain hidden in a tree, but its enlarged, exposed form also gives that person an exceptional presence. The fugitive is central to the viewer's attention even while he must avoid attracting the attention of the group below.

The clearing and the threat below

A small opening at the lower right reveals the pursuers and a dog. Their scale establishes distance, but their placement makes them immediately consequential. The eye moves down from the large foreground body to the group in the clearing, joining two spaces that might initially seem separate.

The tree divides these spaces without sealing them off. Its thick trunk creates a strong central barrier, yet gaps in the surrounding foliage allow the pursuit to remain visible. Curry has arranged concealment and exposure within the same view. The man appears protected by the tree's mass and endangered by the openings around it.

This relationship produces an unequal encounter. The individual is shown at intimate range, where the viewer can attend to his face, limbs and physical effort. The group is seen from farther away, through its collective movement and connection with the dog. The composition concentrates individuality in the hunted man while making pursuit an action carried out by several people together.

Nothing in the image establishes an accusation, trial or crime committed by the fugitive. Its title names his situation as someone in flight. In the anti-lynching context, that distinction matters: the scene asks the viewer to confront the threat to a person rather than accept the pursuers' authority or invent a justification for their violence.

Foliage, moths and the printed surface

Leaves fill much of the picture, their edges turning in different directions around the figure. Against these restless forms, the long limbs and torso supply a more continuous structure. The contrast makes the body readable without isolating it against an empty background. The tree remains an active part of the encounter.

Large moths appear near the lower right, where they introduce pale, patterned shapes against the dark woodland. They occupy a different scale from the distant pursuers. Together with the foreground leaves, they help distinguish the immediate surroundings from the clearing beyond. Their presence makes the intervening space feel inhabited rather than merely a backdrop for the human action.

The image's darks are built from a densely worked field of marks. Lighter passages along the body, clothing and foliage emerge within that surrounding texture. The resulting range of tones gives volume to the figure and depth to the woods, despite the absence of colour. This is one reason to consider The Fugitive as a print in its own right, rather than as a colourless substitute for a painting.

Curry also controls how quickly the scene can be understood. The large figure is encountered first; smaller details then reveal the situation below. Once the pursuers have been noticed, the viewer returns to the same body with a clearer understanding of its precarious position. The composition makes looking a process of discovery.

The NAACP exhibition of 1935

The Fugitive was connected with An Art Commentary on Lynching , an exhibition sponsored by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1935. The Huntington's account identifies Curry's contributions as the lithograph and painting of The Fugitive , together with the painting Manhunt . ^[11] These were related works, with different emphases on the hunted person and the pursuing group.

The Smithsonian places the exhibition within efforts to mobilize opposition to lynching and describes participation by thirty-nine artists of varied backgrounds. ^[10] Curry, a white artist, was contributing to a campaign concerned with racial terror against African Americans. The setting was therefore more specific than a general display of dramatic rural scenes.

Former museum curator Bill North records that The Fugitive lithograph appeared on the exhibition catalogue's cover. ^[12] That use gave the composition a further public function: the image could introduce the exhibition's argument before a reader encountered its individual works. The catalogue appearance is documented here through North's account.

The print's focus on threatened life also helps explain its suitability for such a setting. It presents an urgent human situation while withholding the spectacle of a completed lynching. The viewer is made aware of danger through the arrangement of bodies and distances, with the individual still alive and the outcome unresolved.

The campaign for federal protection

The exhibition coincided with renewed efforts to secure federal anti-lynching legislation. The Senate's historical account describes Senator Edward Costigan's work with Robert Wagner and the obstruction that defeated their efforts. In 1935, a lengthy filibuster prevented the bill's advance, and Costigan withdrew it. ^[13]

That failure supplies an important historical context for Curry's image of a man without visible protection. The print does not illustrate a Senate debate, but its exhibition setting connected the pictured threat with demands for political action. Artistic expression and legislative campaigning addressed the same violence through different means.

The failure of the 1930s proposals should not be mistaken for the end of this legislative history. The Senate records that federal anti-lynching legislation finally became law in 2022. ^[13] The later change does not diminish the urgency of the earlier campaign; it makes the long delay in securing such legislation part of the history through which the print is now understood.

Drawing, print impressions and the separate painting

Birmingham Museum of Art owns Study for “The Fugitive” , a graphite drawing dated about 1934, accession 2008.99. Its listed measurements are for the frame, not the drawing itself. ^[14] The record establishes a separate work on paper and should not be used to supply the size or medium of the Smithsonian print.

Birmingham also owns a 1935 lithograph, accession 2008.100, catalogued as belonging to an edition of twenty-five. It records image and sheet measurements separately. ^[15] Its image measures 12¾ by 9½ inches, within a sheet measuring 19¼ by 16 inches. The Smithsonian gives image dimensions of 13 by 9½ inches for its own impression. Those catalogued measurements belong to the individual records; they do not, by themselves, establish a change to the composition or explain how each institution measured it.

Multiple museum holdings therefore need not indicate different compositions: a print can survive in several impressions, each with its own accession, credit and dimensions.

The related painting has a different technical history. Conservators Lance Mayer and Gay Myers discuss Curry's notebook entry for a Fugitive begun in November 1934. They report tempera underpainting, intervening varnish layers and an oil finish, followed by further work in the winter of 1935–36. ^[16] These details concern the painting, listed in a private collection in their 2002 study.

The notebook evidence comes through the conservators' publication. It helps establish that Curry developed the subject across media, but it does not describe how the lithograph was printed. Nor does the painting's reworking change the Smithsonian's 1935 date for the print. Keeping those histories distinct allows each object to remain intelligible.

The image beside Curry's murals

Curry returned to mob violence in Law Versus Mob Rule , his 1936 oil-on-canvas mural for the Department of Justice in Washington. The General Services Administration identifies its threatened figure as a white man, sheltered by a robed personification of justice. ^[17] He is distinct from the Black fugitive concealed in this tree.

The difference changes the structure of the encounter. In the lithograph, protection depends on a precarious hiding place; in the mural, justice intervenes visibly between the individual and the mob. The comparison brings the absence of such an intervening figure in The Fugitive into sharper focus. No official authority enters its clearing to halt the pursuit.

For the wider commission history, see Curry's murals . Alongside those public works, The Fugitive shows how an intimate printed image could address a national issue. Its force rests on bringing the viewer close to one person while keeping the collective threat unmistakably present.