Early in his career, Ralston Crawford (1906-1978) earned acclaimed
for his Precisionist paintings of architectural subjects associated
with a forward-looking, industrialized America, most famously his
Overseas Highway of 1939. But Crawford was a multifaceted artist
with an adventurous spirit and a curiosity for the world beyond the
United States, one whose work in various media and painting styles
continued to evolve throughout his life, with his later, more
abstract painting having a remarkable emotional dimension. This new
book, published to accompany an exhibition at the Vilcek Foundation
in New York focuses on two series of works - 'Torn Signs' and
'Semana Santa' - that Crawford developed mostly over the course of
the last 20 or so years of his life (although his first 'Torn
Signs' photographs date from the late 1930s, thus making this
Crawford's most enduring theme or motif). Rick Kinsel, President of
the Vilcek Foundation, begins by considering how and why his
travels to Europe, especially to Andalusia in Spain, were so
inspiring to Crawford. Semana Santa, or Holy Week, the last week of
Lent, is observed in Seville with public processions of penitential
confraternities through the streets. Witnessing this event proved
to be a moving experience for Crawford, and he revisited the
subject of the penitents, with their distinctive conical hats,
multiple times across a number of years. The art historian William
C. Agee provides a biographical essay on Crawford's peripatetic
life, examining in particular the relation between the 'Torn Signs'
and 'Semana Santa' bodies of work and the artist's later decades,
after the Second World War, when Crawford was interested less in
the life-affirming view of modernity associated with Precisionism,
and more in giving expression to disillusion and decay. Crawford's
son John writes about the complex interrelationship of the two
series, with emphasis on the way in which Crawford's photography
relates to his painting and printmaking. Individual works in both
series are then explored in depth in the main part of the book by
Emily Schuchardt Navratil, Curator of the Vilcek Foundation.
Reproductions of the pages of sketchbooks from 1971 (the year he
was diagnosed with leukaemia) illuminate Crawford's approach to
remembering colour through writing and his incredible visual
memory; here, drawings of torn signs, Semana Santa and the streets
of Seville are interspersed with the artist's thoughts on colour,
the connection between drawing and writing, and his own life and
death.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
