About the Object

This pencil sketch, completed in the Curtiss-Wright Aircraft Plant in Buffalo, New York, features a wing fixture with various components and triangular shapes suggestive of ladders stacked up behind it. This ladder-like form, in varying states of abstraction, figures prominently in several related works in the Collection, including Factory with Yellow Center Shape (VF2013.01.01).

 

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, many of which were drawn on the back of War Department letterhead.