Red and Black (U.S.S. Nevada) 1949

Ralston Crawford made "Red and Black (U.S.S. Nevada)" using printmaking techniques, and what strikes me first is its starkness, the way Crawford reduces the ship to these powerful geometric forms in just three colors. It’s all about the push and pull of shapes, like a visual puzzle where the subject emerges from abstraction. There’s something so satisfying in the way the red and black play against the white of the paper, creating depth and tension. The textures are implied through the bold shapes, suggesting the cold, hard steel of the ship. Look at how he uses these sharp, angular lines to convey the ship's structure, and then contrasts them with the curved shapes that evoke the sea. It makes me think of Stuart Davis, another American modernist who found beauty in the urban landscape. Just like in Davis' work, there’s a sense of energy here, a dynamism that captures the industrial spirit of the era. Crawford invites us to see the world in new ways, to find the abstract in the real, and the beauty in the functional.