Charles Arnoldi
Karel Apple
David Banks
Herbert Bayer
Hans Bellmer
Billy Al Bengston
Elizabeth Bergreen
Eugene Berman
Oscar Bluemner
Dorothy Brett
Nicholas Brigante
Annie W. Brigmann
Armando Britto
Nanette Calder
Camera Works
Marc Chagall
Robert Cremean
Jose Luis Cuevas
Jim Dine
Gordon Onslow Ford
Sam Francis
Charles Gesmar
Joe Goode
Sidney Gordin
Balcomb Greene
Gertrude Greene
Pier Guzzi
Roy Gussow
F. Benedict Herzog
Hilaire Hiler
David Octavius Hill
Carl Holty
Winslow Homer
John Hunter
Mike Kanemitsu
Gertrude Kasebier
Oskar Kokoschka
Lee Krasner
Robert Longo
Helen Lundeberg
Richard Lytle
John Mancini
Andre Masson
Henry Moore
Lee Mullican
Matt Mullican
Claes Oldenburg
Wolfgang Paalen
Pablo Palazuelo
Mexican Retablos
Jose de Rivera
James Rosenquist
Morgan Russell
Niki de Saint Phalle
Kurt Seligmann
Eduard Steichen
Theophile Alexandre Steinlen
Frank Stella
Alfred Stieglitz
Jack Stuppin
Mark Tobey
George C. Tooker, Jr.
Abraham Walkowitz
Tom Wesselmann
Clarence H. White


For availability of
artwork contact us.

Gordon Onslow Ford
American, 1912-2003

Press release from our 2002 exhibition.

Some words about Gordon's work by Gordon.

From Personages to Radiant Beings by Fariba Bogzaran, Ph.D.

Notes on Gordon Onslow Ford
by Herbert Palmer Gallery

Gordon Onslow Ford began his career as a Surrealist artist in Paris. In 1938 André Breton made him an official member of the Surrealist group. There he worked with Matta, Tanguy, Paalen and Victor Brauner.
Onslow Ford was born in 1912 to a family of artists in Great Britain. His early education was at the Royal Naval College. After numerous visits to Paris he decided to study art. He studied with Fernand Léger and André Lhôte. He also met frequently with the writer Gertrude Stein.
When World War II broke out, he went back to England and like many of the Surrealist who were to come to New York, he also was invited. Since he was the only English speaking Surrealist, he was asked to give a series of four lectures on surrealism and automatism. Along with the lectures, the artist created surrealist exhibitions. Many New York painters who attended these lectures later became the first Abstract Expressionists.
In 1941 Onslow Ford married writer Jacqueline Johnson and together they moved to Mexico where many other Surrealists moved during the war. There he met painter/philosopher Wolfgang Paalen who he knew from Surrealist groups in Paris and they became very close friends. Paalen was creating a new publication DYN and Johnson, who was an accomplished writer, became involved in editing the magazine. Onslow Ford and Paalen began a new direction from surrealism to explore the deeper layers of the unconscious.
Onslow Ford continued painting in Mexico until 1947 and then moved to California. In 1948, he was invited to give a retrospective show at the San Francisco Museum of Art. He called the exhibit "Toward the New Subject in Painting." There he announced his new direction in painting, which explores the inner worlds.
Later Paalen joined Onslow Ford in California and together with painter Lee Mullican they created an inspiring exhibition called Dynaton (the possible) at the San Francisco Museum of Art (1951). The exhibition installation began with the native arts as a way to honor the spirit of ancestors and the land.
Since 1958, Onslow Ford lived in the virgin forests in Inverness, California. He built his home and studios there where he worked until he passed away.