There’s a new exhibition coming to the Brandywine River Museum of Art this summer.
Ralston Crawford: Air + Space + War features the work of the modernist artist best known for his abstract representations of urban life and industry.
Brandywine River Museum of Art curator Amanda Burdan joins Delaware Public Media’s Kelli Steele on this week’s Arts Playlist to preview this exhibit.
The Brandywine River Museum of Artin Chadds Ford, PA re-opens this summer with the Ralston Crawford: Air + Space + Warexhibition.
“This is an exhibition that has been organized by our friends at the Vilcek Foundation," said Burdan. "But they knew that I had an interest in Ralston Crawford, who is a preeminent American Modernist. I have borrowed works from him before to show at the Brandywine, partly because he’s such an important Modernist - but he has a local connection as well.”
Burdan notes that in the 1930’s, Ralston Crawford lived in and around the Brandywine area - in Chadds Ford, Exton, and in Wilmington.
She says that’s one reason she wanted to bring the exhibition to the museum.
“It was an interesting story to see a modernist developing right in our own area in the 1930’s," said Burdan. "And so when this exhibition came to my attention, I knew we had to have it. Because it explores his transformation from an artist who was still working in a representational manner; he was painting the barns of Chester County.”
The exhibit opens June 20, 2021 and features nearly 80 works from the 1940’s, highlighting Crawford’s involvement with World War II.
The exhibit runs through September 19, 2021
Delaware Public Media' s arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
