Torn Signs

de William C. Agee, John Crawford, Rick Kinsel, Emily Schuchardt Navratil

Early in his career, Ralston Crawford (1906-1978) earned acclaim for his Precisionist paintings of architectural subjects associated with a forward-looking, industrialized America. But Crawford was a multifaceted artist with a curiosity for the world beyond the United States, one whose work in various media continued to evolve, with his later, more abstract painting having a remarkable emotional dimension. This new book focuses on two series of works "Torn Signs" and "Semana Santa" that Crawford developed mostly over the course of the last 20 or so years of his life. Rick Kinsel considers how and why his travels to Europe, especially to Andalusia in Spain, were so inspiring to Crawford. Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is observed in Seville with public processions of penitential confraternities. Witnessing this event proved to be a moving experience for Crawford, and he revisited the subject of the penitents multiple times across a number of years.