Seven Composition Studies 1945

Ralston Crawford made these seven studies with ink on paper. What was he thinking, mapping out all these geometries? He’s almost building, or deconstructing, a city in front of our eyes. I can imagine him drawing and redrawing, erasing and adjusting, searching for the right combination of lines and shapes to capture a feeling, to figure something out. It’s like he's having a conversation with himself, each sketch a new idea or a refinement of the last. I see the influence of Cubism, a flattening of space, with the planes of a building colliding, but also the precision of architectural drawing. It reminds me of some of Stuart Davis’s work. It's like he’s asking: how can we capture the energy of modern life with just a few lines? How can we make something new out of the old? I always think that artists are inspiring each other across time, and that art is a conversation. It's great to feel that sense of play and experimentation. Crawford embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations.