Artist: Ralston Crawford (Canadian/American, 1906 - 1978). Title: "St. Petersburg to Tampa [study]". Medium: Watercolor, ink, and pencil on paper. Date: Composed 1937-1938. Dimensions: Overall size: 10 1/2 x 12 3/8 in. (267 x 314 mm). Lot Note(s): Signed lower left. The image itself is in fine condition; the work was affixed to a contemporary backing board, was later front mounted and framed, and then later roughly removed from the mat, the image itself being completely preserved. Comment(s): Our drawing is the earliest known study for Crawford’s oil painting “St. Petersburg to Tampa” (1938), in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Our work is distinguished by its lack of poles on the left side of the bridge which are present in the (undoubtedly) final study for the painting, the mixed media on paper example which sold for $8,250 at Sotheby’s New York, December 3, 1992, lot #189. The finished painting then abstracts the poles as well as the distant green landscape, absent in the painting. Crawford was an abstract painter, printmaker, and photographer. His early work placed him with Precisionist artists like Niles Spencer and Charles Sheeler. His later work was geometrically abstract. Image copyright © The Estate of Ralston Crawford/Licensed by VAGA, NewYork, NY. [29898-2-12000]