Third Avenue Elevated

Third Avenue Elevated is Ralston Crawford's photographic view of a striped, structural steel support for a New York City elevated train. Under Crawford's scrutiny, the object loses its actual functional identity. Instead, the girder section appears as a geometric arrangement of stacked, parallel white and gray rectangles flanking a vertical row of three dark triangles that are, in fact, the negative spaces formed by the diagonal supports. The rounded heads of bolts serve as dotted accents on the parallel verticals. Alternatively, the image could be read as a series of stacked "N" letters. In the slightly blurry background, alternating bands of shadows and a sunlit streetscape appear as tilted light and dark planes.

Trained as a painter, Crawford began to make photographs with deliberate artistic purpose around 1938. Thereafter, he regularly used his photographic images as the basis for compositions in other media. Many of his photographs focus on the abstract arrangements of shapes, lines, and light and dark contrasts he perceived in his urban surroundings. This photograph, which is one of at least six Crawford took of an urban public transit system girder, inspired a series of color lithographs that includes Third Avenue Elevated #4 (TF 1996.86.a).            

L'Amérique et les Modernes, 1900–1950 (American Moderns, 1900–1950), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, July 25–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. American Moderns, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Pl. 7, p. 34 (black & white).

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Paul J. Karlstrom. L'Amérique et les modernes, 1900–1950. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2000. Pl. 7, p. 34 (black & white).