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: 38.1 x 56 cm (15 x 22 1/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Neelon Crawford
Accession Number
2000.164.16
Art Historical Context
Ralston Crawford's *First Avenue #1*1954) captures the stark geometry of mid-century American urban life through the lens of Precisionism, a movement Crawford helped define. Known for his precise, machine-like depictions of industrial and cityscapes, Crawford transformed bustling streets like New York's First Avenue into abstracted compositions of light, shadow, and form. Created in the post-World War II era of rapid urbanization and modernist fervor, this lithograph reflects the era's fascination with structure and anonymity amid growing metropolises. Printed in bold black ink on fine Rives ...
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...