CINCINNATI, OH.- With gratitude and appreciation, the Contemporary Arts Center marks the groundbreaking contributions of its last living founder Peggy Frank Crawford who died April 18, 2015 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Contemporary Arts Center Director Raphaela Platow fondly recalled the impact that Peggy Crawford made on so many, ”Mrs. Crawford’s life is an inspiration to me. As a young woman she was one of the three women founders of the Contemporary Arts Center (called Modern Art Society at the time), an institution she initiated, against all odds, in a moment in time when the Great Depression was still shaking the world and the Second World War was about to erupt. It is so easy not to do something, to shy away from a great idea because of the many obstacles and hurdles in the way, a lack of resources, or fear of failure. But Peggy Crawford and her two companion co-founders created the Modern Art Society in 1939 because their lives urged them to do it. Mrs. Crawford applied the same passion, tenacity, and energy to her different life pursuits and I feel lucky that I had the opportunity to meet her and to spend time in her presence.”

Peggy, an inspired photographer recently helped the Contemporary Arts Center celebrate its 75th anniversary with an exhibition of photography here at the CAC in September 2014. Peggy even travelled to Cincinnati in September for opening of the exhibition. Platow said, “We were honored to present Mrs. Crawford’s captivating art in an exquisite exhibition. She is an artist who has spent her life observing and capturing the visual nuances of different cultures around the world with the camera as her artistic tool. It was special to have both the art and one of the co-founders of the CAC united for the celebration of our 75th anniversary as an institution.”

Born in 1917 Peggy Frank graduated from Smith College. In 1939 along with Betty Rauh, and Rita Rentschler she founded the Modern Art Society in Cincinnati, Ohio, which would become the Contemporary Arts Center.

The three founders had little or no formal museum experience. For a year, their "office" consisted of a portable typewriter set up in a living room. At the start, the society had staunch backers and hard workers, but they had very little money and had only a borrowed gallery space in the basement of the Cincinnati Art Museum.

During the first year the founders raised $5,000 to produce six exhibitions, each with a catalogue. Their first exhibition, Modern Paintings from Cincinnati (Nov.-Dec. 1939) showed their early commitment to showcasing up-and-coming local artists.

The fledgling Modern Art Society mounted new and often controversial exhibitions, published catalogues, encouraged local artists, and helped promote contemporary art collections and education. Between 1940 and 1951, the Modern Art Society exhibited such artists as Pablo Picasso (1940), George Grosz, Paul Klee and Alexander Calder (1942), Fernand Leger (1944), Rufino Tamayo (1947), Jean Arp (1949), and other new artists in abstraction, Surrealism, modern architecture and contemporary design. One of the highlights of this time was the Cincinnati showing of Picasso’s Guernica in 1940 because it represented the first and only time the important work was shown in the Midwest.

Peggy Frank married Ralston Crawford, a painter and photographer who preceded her in death.

She is survived by two sons, Neelon ( Susan Hill), and John, a stepson, Robert ( Eldrid Crawford).

A memorial service was held at Kingston Retirement Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico April 30, 2015.