L'Etoile de L'Occident 1955

Ralston Crawford made this print, L'Etoile de L'Occident, using a screenprinting process with muted tones of grey, red, and black. He applied each color in flat, clearly delineated shapes. You can almost imagine Crawford carefully aligning each screen, pulling the squeegee, and gradually building up the image in layers. I wonder what he was thinking as he was arranging these forms—the circle on a stem, the hovering trapezoid, all these lines. Making a painting is a process of inquiry, and screenprinting offers a whole different set of possibilities. The medium itself encourages a graphic style, simplifying the subject into bold, geometric shapes. Crawford wasn’t just making pretty pictures; he was part of a larger conversation about how we see and represent the world, and how artists challenge each other across generations. It’s an embodied act, full of ambiguity, open to endless interpretations.