Ralston Crawford

(New Orleans Parade)
1956

A black and white photograph depicting four individuals in military-style uniforms, each carrying a rifle with a bayonet, marching in a residential area. They are passing by a parked pickup truck with the words "COLOR APPLIANCES" visible on its side. The background features modest houses with front porches and a leafless tree. The image has a vintage appearance, suggesting it was taken in the mid-20th century.

Not on view

Date
1956

Classification
Photographs

Medium
Gelatin silver print

Dimensions
Sheet: 8 × 9 15/16in. (20.3 × 25.2 cm) Image: 7 5/8 × 9 9/16in. (19.4 × 24.3 cm)

Accession number
2008.313

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Jointly owned by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Gift of John Crawford

Rights and reproductions
© Ralston Crawford Estate / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

API
artworks/34868

Audio

Ralston Crawford, New Orleans Parade, 1956

In American Legends: From Calder to O'Keeffe

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Ralston Crawford, New Orleans Parade, 1956

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Narrator: Ralston Crawford first went to New Orleans in 1949, intending to spend a weekend listening to jazz. He was immediately infatuated, and ended up spending much of the next three decades in the city. He had grown out of step with the New York art world: his geometric abstraction was too cerebral for the Abstract Expressionists and their champions. His personal style was quite elegant, and he didn’t fit in with Village bohemians. In the French Quarter of New Orleans he found a slow pace, civilized manner, and neighborhood quality that appealed to him enormously. He photographed the city voraciously—ultimately producing more than 10,000 photographs of New Orleans. He pictured buildings, jazz musicians, singers, nightclubs, and street parades. These photographs are the most human part of Crawford’s career. They’re openly emotional—especially compared to his earlier paintings of architecture, in which psychological content is latent or implied.
After his death in 1978, Crawford was buried in New Orleans, and honored with a jazz funeral.