First Avenue #1
1954
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
lithograph in black on Rives paper
Dimensions
overall: 38 x 56 cm (14 15/16 x 22 1/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Neelon Crawford
Accession Number
2000.164.14
Art Historical Context
Ralston Crawford's *First Avenue #1*1954) is a striking black lithograph on Rives paper measuring 38 x 56 cm, now housed in the National Gallery of Art as a gift from Neelon Crawford. Created in the mid-20th century, print captures the artist's fascination with urban geometry, a hallmark of his Precisionist. Precisionism, an American movement from the interwar years, celebrated the stark beauty of modern industry and cityscapes through clean lines and abstracted forms, influenced by Cubism and European modernism. Crawford (1906–1978), a master printmaker, photographer, and painter, often depi...
About the Artist
Ralston Crawford
Ralston Crawford (1906–1978) was a Canadian-born American painter, printmaker, and photographer whose work stands as one of the most rigorous expressions of Precisionism in the twentieth century. Born in St. Catharines, Ontario, and raised in Buffalo, New York, he began formal art training at the Otis Art Institute in California in 1927 before moving on to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts...