C. Curry Bohm: Brown County and Beyond

C. Curry Bohm was a talented and highly regarded landscape artist who is most commonly associated with Brown County, Indiana. Most consider him a leader of the second generation of Brown County painters. However, Curry's career and success expanded well beyond the borders of Brown County. The artist was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1894. Much of his artistic training was received in Chicago. The Illinois metropolis served as an important focus for his career development and an outlet for exhibitions until the 1950s. Curry permanently moved to Brown County in 1930. Many of his works during the first half of his career portrayed landscapes painted in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. Later, harbor and marine landscapes painted along coastal sites in Massachusetts and Maine provided new challenges and satisfaction for him over the second half of his career. Curry garnered success in all these artistic arenas. He won major awards at the Chicago Palette & Club in the early 1930s. He was awarded multiple exhibition prizes in East Coast shows during the 1950s. His Smoky Mountain and East Coast landscapes were major painting subjects for his showing in the Indiana Hoosier Salon exhibitions, from 1929-1967, where he won over 25 awards, including two Best in Show Awards. Curry Bohm thus became one of the leading painters in the Indiana arts community during the 20th century.