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Ralston Crawford Biography
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1906 |
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Born September 25th in Ontario, Canada
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1910 - 1926 |
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Moves to Buffalo, New York; works various jobs, including employment as an architectural draftsman; during vacations he travels with his father, a ship’s captain, around the Great Lakes
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1926 - 1927 |
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Works as sailor on steamships to Central America, California, and the Caribbean; studies in Los Angeles at Otis Art Institute, 1927; employed as illustrator in Walt Disney’s studio, 1927
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1927 - 1930 |
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Studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia (under Hugh Breckenridge), and at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania
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1930 - 1932 |
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Moves to New York to paint; summers in Gloucester, Massachusetts; receives good reviews by Edward Alden Jewell of The New York Times
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1932 - 1933 |
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Travels to Paris, Spain and Italy; returns to New York to study at Columbia University
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1934 |
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First solo exhibition held at the Maryland Institute of Art, Baltimore
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1935 - 1939 |
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Lives and paints in Chadds Ford and Exton, Pennsylvania; subjects of paintings are mostly local barns and industrial images; experiments with photography, which remains a lifetime interest; continues to receive favorable reviews in The New York Times and in the New York Sun
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1940 - 1941 |
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Participates in group exhibition A New Realism: Crawford, Demuth, Sheeler, Spencer at the Cincinnati Art Museum; produces paintings, book jackets and book illustrations in New York
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1942 |
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Teaches at the Albright Art School in Buffalo; enlists in the 603rd Engineers Camouflage Battalion, US Army
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1943 - 1945 |
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Serves as master sergeant, chief of the Visual Presentation Unit of the Weather Division in the Army Air Force; assigned to the China-Burma and India theatre; visits Curtiss-Wright aircraft plant in Buffalo, and in ensuing years makes paintings relating to his photographs of the assemblage of airplane wings at the plant; solo exhibition at Downtown Gallery, New York, 1944
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1946 |
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Sent by Fortune to witness atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll to paint his impressions; solo show at Downtown Gallery, New York
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1947 - 1950 |
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Teaches and paints in Honolulu, Brooklyn, Cincinnati, Minneapolis and Baton Rouge; solo show at Downtown Gallery, New York, 1950
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1953 |
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Retrospective at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
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1954 |
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Solo show at Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York (and again in 1956 and 1958)
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1951 - 1957 |
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Travels in Europe and returns to New York, 1951-52; teaches at New School for Social Research, New York, 1952-57
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1954 - 1958 |
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Lives in France; travels to Spain to study Goya’s paintings; major retrospective at Milwaukee Art Center, 1958
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1959 - 1961 |
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Travels through Spain and Paris and the United States; appointed consultant to the Archive of New Orleans Jazz at Tulane University, New Orleans; included in major exhibition The Precisionist View in American Art at The Walker Art Center, Minnesota, 1961
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1965 |
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Solo exhibition at Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
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1962 - 1967 |
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Travels to Greece, France and Egypt to make prints and photographs; visiting artist positions held at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln and at the University of Illinois in Champaign
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1968 |
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Retrospective at Creighton University Fine Arts Gallery, Omaha, Nebraska; travels include Guadeloupe, Shelter Islands and Martinique
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1969 |
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Lives in New York; solo exhibition at the Century Association, New York (and again in 1978)
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1970 - 1971 |
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Receives award from National Academy of Arts and Letters; travels through Spain and England; solo show at Zabriskie Gallery, New York (and again in 1973 and 1976)
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1972 |
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Receives award from National Academy of Design, New York
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1973 - 1978 |
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Travels include: Europe; Asia; Nepal; Afghanistan; and the South Pacific; dies April 27, 1978, in Houston, Texas; buried in St. Louis Cemetery, New Orleans
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| Selected Exhibitions |
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1937
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Boyer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (first solo show)
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| Links to further information |
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