Ralston Crawford was born in Canada in 1906 and came to the U.S. in 1910. He studied at the Otis Art Institute in Las Angeles in 1927 and then went on to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art from1927-30. Crawford received critical acclaim for his Percisionist interpretations of structures seen in American industrial landscapes, such as barns, silos, tanks and bridges. Crawford served in WWII, preparing weather charts for pilots In 1951, Crawford traveled to Paris and produced litho prints of Spanish bullfights and the war ruins of Cologne. The St. Louis cemetery in New Orleans inspired his most important series of paintings, dating from 1951-61. Austere shapes with sharp outlines and flat color in a unique perspective best characterize Crawford's work. Crawford taught at many schools and universities and has held numerous one-man shows and several traveling retrospectives. He died in 1978.

Biography courtesy of The Caldwell Gallery, www.antiquesandfineart.com/caldwell