About the Object
Crawford created this drawing two years after his visit to the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Plant. In the work, shapes suggestive of plane forms and factory fixtures seem to float across the page, converging and overlapping in the center. Crawford rotated the composition of the related painting Factory with Yellow Center Shape, VF2013.01.01, 180 degrees.
Additional Information
In December 1944, Crawford received a commission from Burton Tremaine, president and chairman of the Miller Lighting Company, to commemorate the installation of nine miles of continuous fluorescent lighting in the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Plant in Buffalo, New York. Crawford was given special permission to photograph inside the plant, taking a least a dozen pictures and creating dozens of drawings, resulting in at least 11 related paintings. Factory with Lights, 1947, in the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, is also based on this composition.
The Artist;
By descent to the Artist’s son, John C. Crawford, Brooklyn, NY;
New York, NY. Hirschl & Adler Galleries. Ralston Crawford: Images of War. March 19-April 24, 1993, pp. 6, 35, ill. p. 25.
Chadds Ford, PA. Brandywine River Museum of Art. Ralston Crawford: Air + Space + War (June 19-September 1, 2021); Dayton, OH. Dayton Art Institute (October 30, 2021-January 23, 2022), ill. pp. 121 (detail), 164.