There were 20 civilian photographers at Bikinibut only one artist. Of all things, he was an abstractionist.
This week Ralston Crawford's painted reports were reproduced in the December FORTUNE and went on view in a Manhattan gallery. The closest thing to nature in his blast pictures was an occasional circle (representing portholes) which he included for the sake of contrast "as you would show the whiteness of a wall by putting a thumbprint on it." His Test Able was a pat, flat imitation of chaos.
To anybody vainly looking for the atom bomb's familiar and awesome mushrooming spray, Abstractionist Crawford explained that he...
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