Copyright by Susanna Brooks Gorski 2010 The Thesis Committee for Susanna Brooks Gorski Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: The Artist, the Atom, and the Bikini Atoll: Ralston Crawford Paints Operation Crossroads APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Linda D. Henderson John R. Clarke The Artist, the Atom, and the Bikini Atoll: Ralston Crawford Paints Operation Crossroads by Susanna Brooks Gorski, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin August 2010 Abstract The Artist, the Atom, and the Bikini Atoll: Ralston Crawford Paints Operation Crossroads Susanna Brooks Gorski, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2010 Supervisor: Linda D. Henderson This thesis explores Ralston Crawford‘s canvases painted after witnessing the events of Operation Crossroads at the Bikini Atoll in 1946. Commissioned by Fortune, the artist provides the viewer with a unique and captivating view of the destruction wrought by atomic weaponry. Through a careful look at Crawford‘s relationship with Fortune, Edith Halpert‘s Downtown Gallery, and Crawford‘s artistic contemporaries, this thesis positions the paintings within the art historical and cultural context of the mid- twentieth century and asserts their importance to the history of the Atomic Age. The thesis traces Crawford‘s artistic development and his use of an Americanized Cubist language. In addition, the thesis looks closely at the rich cultural fabric of the postwar era and evaluates Crawford‘s position in the American Art scene. iv Table of Contents List of Figures ........................................................................................................ vi The Artist, the Atom, and the Bikini Atoll: Ralston Crawford Paints Operation Crossroads .......................................................................................................1 Figures....................................................................................................................60 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................81 Vita… .....................................................................................................................91 v List of Figures Figure 1. Ralston Crawford, Test Able, 1946. Oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 17 5/8 in. Georgia Museum of Art, The University of Georgia, Athens; Eva Underhill Holbrook Collection of American Art; Gift of Alfred H. Holbrook. From Barbara Haskell, Ralston Crawford (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985), 68. Figure 2. Archival Photograph, ―Descent of the Column, Baker Test,‖ July 25, 1946. From United States Joint Task Force One, Office of the Historian, Operation Crossroads, the Official Pictorial Record (New York: W.H. Wise and Company, 1946), 196. Figure 3. Archival Photograph, ―Test Able Panorama,‖ July 1, 1946. From United States Joint Task Force One, Office of the Historian, Operation Crossroads, the Official Pictorial Record (New York: W.H. Wise and Company, 1946), 138-139. Figure 4. Archival Photograph, ―High Altitude View, Baker Test,‖ July 25, 1946. From United States Joint Task Force One, Office of the Historian, Operation Crossroads, the Official Pictorial Record (New York: W.H. Wise and Company, 1946), 183. Figure 5. Herbert Matter, Arts and Architecture cover, December 1946. From Brooke Kamin Rapaport and Kevin L. Stayton, Vital Forms: American Art and Design in the Atomic Age, 1940-1960 (New York: Brooklyn Museum of Art in association with Harry N. Abrams, 2001), 12. Figure 6. Charles Sheeler, Church Street El, 1920. Oil on canvas, 16 x 19 in. The Cleveland Museum of Art. From The Cleveland Museum of Art Collection at ARTstor. Figure 7. Ralston Crawford, Vertical Building, 1934. Oil on canvas, 40 1/8 x 34 1/8 in. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Arthur W. Barney Bequest Fund Purchase. From Barbara Haskell, Ralston Crawford (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985), 29. Figure 8. Ralston Crawford, Sanford Tanks, 1938. Oil on canvas, 36 x 28 in. From Barbara Haskell, Ralston Crawford (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985), 46. Figure 9. Ralston Crawford, Gas Tanks, 1938. Silver gelatin print, 6 x 4 3/8 in. From Barbara Haskell, Ralston Crawford (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985), 46. Figure 10. Ralston Crawford, Overseas Highway, 1939. From Barbara Haskell, Ralston vi Crawford (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985), 53. Figure 11. Ralston Crawford, A Plane Accident in Relation to Storm Structure, 1943. From Barbara Haskell, Ralston Crawford (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985), 59. Figure 12. Ralston Crawford, At the Dock, 1942. From Fortune, November 1944. Figure 13. Ralston Crawford, Fortune cover, April 1945. From Fortune, April 1945. Figure 14. Time Magazine cover, July 1, 1946. Figure 15. Admiral Blandy and Mrs. Blandy, Admiral Frank J. Lowry celebrating the end of Joint Task Force One, November 7, 1946. From Jonathan M. Weisgall, Operation Crossroads: The Atomic Tests at Bikini Atoll (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1994). Figure 16. Ralston Crawford, U.S.S. Nevada, 1946. Oil on canvas, dimensions unknown. From Ralston Crawford, ―Bikini,‖ Fortune, December 1946, 154. Figure 17. Archival Photograph, ―Used Car, Aboard Nevada,‖ 1946. From United States Joint Task Force One, Office of the Historian, Operation Crossroads, the Official Pictorial Record (New York: W.H. Wise and Company, 1946), 164. Figure 18. Archival Photograph, ―Shredded Airplane, Nevada,‖ 1946. From United States Joint Task Force One, Office of the Historian, Operation Crossroads, the Official Pictorial Record (New York: W.H. Wise and Company, 1946), 165. Figure 19. Ralston Crawford, Bomber, 1944. Oil on canvas, 28 x 40 in. From William Agee, Ralston Crawford (New York: Twelvetrees Press, 1983), plate 23. Figure 20. Archival Photograph, ―General Damage on Stern Deck, Nevada,‖ 1946. From United States Joint Task Force One, Office of the Historian, Operation Crossroads, the Official Pictorial Record (New York: W.H. Wise and Company, 1946), 167. Figure 21. Archival Photograph, ―Test Able Aftermath: Nevada,‖ 1946. From United States Joint Task Force One, Office of the Historian, Operation Crossroads, the Official Pictorial Record (New York: W.H. Wise and Company, 1946), 169. Figure 22. Page 156, ―Test Able: Cloud Column,‖ from Ralston Crawford, ―Bikini,‖ Fortune, December 1946. vii Figure 23. Page 155, ―If Bikini Atoll Had Been New York Harbor,‖ Ralston Crawford, ―Bikini,‖ Fortune, December 1946. Figure 24. Stuart Davis, Report from Rockport, 1940. Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Edith and Milton Lowenthal Collection, Bequest of Edith Abrahamson Lowenthal, 1991. Figure 25. Ralston Crawford, Tour of Inspection, Bikini, 1946. Oil on canvas, 24 x 34 in. From Barbara Haskell, Ralston Crawford (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985), 69. Figure 26. Ralston Crawford, Report from Bikini, 1946. From Richard B. Freeman, ―Artist at Bikini,‖ Magazine of Art, April 1947, 157. Figure 27. Ralston Crawford, Sea Plane Takeoff, 1946. Oil on canvas, 16 x 12 1/4 in. From William Agee, Ralston Crawford (New York: Twelvetrees Press, 1983), plate 27. Figure 28. Philip Evergood, Renunciation, 1946. Oil on canvas, 50 x 26 in. From John I. H. Baur, Philip Evergood (New York: H. N. Abrams, 1975), figure 81. Figure 29. Salvador Dali, The Three Sphinxes of Bikini, 1947. Oil on canvas, 11 4/5 x 19 7/10 in. From Gavin Parkinson, Surrealism, Art and Modern Science: Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Epistemology (New Have: Yale University Press, 2008), 207. Figure 30. Vernon Fisher, Bikini, 1987. Acrylic on canvas, 138 x 222 in. From Vernon Fisher (Champaign: Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994). Figure 31. Adolph Gottlieb, Cadmium Red Above Black, 1959. Oil on canvas, 108 x 90 in. University of Texas at Austin, Blanton Museum of Art, Gift of Mari and James A. Michener. Figure 32. Ben Shahn, From That Day On, 1960. Oil and tempera on canvas and board, 71 ½ x 35 3/8 in. University of Texas at Austin, Blanton Museum of Art, Gift of Mari and James A. Michener. viii The Artist, the Atom, and the Bikini Atoll: Ralston Crawford Paints Operation Crossroads Introduction Early in the morning on July 1, 1946, the United States detonated an atomic bomb over the idyllic and calm Bikini Atoll Lagoon. Operation Crossroads, a joint Army-Navy test, drew massive attention from the international community. Witnesses to the event ranged from newsmen to diplomats, from sitting government officials to enlisted service men. In total, over 42,000 people viewed the first explosion of the atomic bomb since Nagasaki. Of all the observers, only one artist attended the historic event—Ralston Crawford. Dispatched to the site by Fortune to report what he saw, Crawford created a unique response to the most fearsome weapon in the American arsenal. The article, published in the December 1946 issue of Fortune, demonstrated Crawford‘s talent as a mapmaker and his invention of a new visual language to address the destruction brought by the advances of atomic science during World War II. The centerpiece of Crawford‘s colorful spread in Fortune was the painting Test Able, named after the first test bomb dropped over the lagoon (fig.1). Crawford described the blast in a letter to his wife commenting,