{"data":{"id":"2274","type":"artwork","attributes":{"id":2274,"topgoose_id":16161,"portfolio_id":null,"tms_id":2274,"title":"Steel Foundry, Coatesville, Pa.","display_artist_text":"Ralston Crawford","display_date":"1936–1937","accession_number":"37.10","dimensions":"Overall: 32 1/8 × 40 in. (81.6 × 101.6 cm)","medium":"Oil on canvas","department":"collection","classification":"Paintings","credit_line":"Purchase","is_virtual":false,"is_portfolio":false,"portfolio_tms_id":null,"portfolio":null,"edition":null,"publication_info":"","description":"\u003cp\u003eRalston Crawford, \u003cem\u003eSteel Foundry, Coatesville, Pa.\u003c/em\u003e, 1936–1937. Oil on canvas, overall: 32 1/8 × 40 in. (81.6 × 101.6 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase 37.10. © Ralston Crawford Estate / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York\u003c/p\u003e","object_label":"\u003cp\u003eDuring the Depression, Ralston Crawford’s paintings of highways, grain elevators, and steel foundries captured America’s enduring optimism about technology and progress. Like the work of his Precisionist contemporaries, such as Elsie Driggs and Charles Sheeler, \u003ci\u003eSteel Foundry, Coatesville, Pa.\u003c/i\u003e depicts the functional architecture of commerce and industry using bold geometric forms and crisp lines. In Crawford’s portrayal, the foundry becomes a looming silhouette devoid of human presence, its architecture reduced to an arrangement of flat, monochromatic planes. Two fences act as barriers that close off the structure from the street. Crawford exaggerates the size and severity of the building by contrasting it sharply with the flattened fences and telephone poles in the foreground, as well as the background of wispy clouds.\u003c/p\u003e","ai_alt_text":"A dark industrial warehouse sits behind a concrete and wooden fence with telephone poles and wires overhead.","alt_text":null,"visual_description":null,"on_view":false,"created_at":"2017-08-30T17:30:38.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-02-06T12:01:13.198-05:00","images":[{"id":93884,"url":"https://whitneymedia.org/assets/artwork/2274/37_10_cropped.jpg"}]},"relationships":{"artists":{"data":[{"id":"301","type":"artist"}]}}}}