(1912-2003)
Gordon Onslow Ford was a British painter renowned for having been the youngest member of the surrealist group invited by Andre Breton. His lifelong quest to explore an independent path took him from England to Paris and from New York to Mexico. In 1947 he moved to San Francisco and in 1958 he settled in Inverness (California) near San Francisco, where he nourished his nonfigurative painting style by studying Asian philosophies and calligraphy and exploration of the inner worlds.
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Gordon Onslow Ford’s formative years
Gordon Onslow Ford was born in the English town of Wendover on 26 December 1912 to a family of artists: his grandfather Edward Onslow Ford was a sculptor, and his uncle Rudolph Onslow Ford was a landscape painter. Onslow Ford began painting at a very young age thanks to lessons from his uncle.
Following the death of his father, a doctor in the British army, Onslow Ford was sent to the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth to join the British Navy at the age of 14. During his training, he kept a notebook of daily reports, which included detailed technical illustrations. In an interview in 1984, he explained: “It’s a tradition in the British Navy to make watercolors”. As such, the artist managed to combine his duty to illustrate with his passion for painting.
Onslow Ford traveled a great deal, torn between painting and his commitment to the military. It was a visit to Egypt in 1934 that enabled him to decide which path to follow. Stationed in Alexandria, he was fascinated by the town and painted many watercolors of it. It was there that he met Richard Combe Abdy (1869-1938) – a wealthy English banker based in Alexandria. Abdy had close connections in the British Navy, regularly playing host to its officers. Onslow Ford attended the events organized at Abdy’s home in Alexandria, mainly for the chance to paint in his gardens. Abdy was impressed by Onslow Ford’s talent and became his patron. He helped Onslow Ford leave the British Navy, thanks to his connections and organized the artist’s first exhibition in London in 1936.
Paris and Surrealism
After his resignation from the British Navy was accepted in 1937, Onslow Ford moved to Paris, where he devoted himself to painting. He studied for a number of weeks with André Lhote and then with Fernand Léger. Soon after his arrival in the capital, he met the Chilean architect, Roberto Matta. Matta was working with Le Corbusier at the time and was already an experienced illustrator. Onslow Ford admired his drawings, which he considered “the most exciting images” he had seen in Paris. Roberto Matta and Gordon Onslow Ford quickly became very good friends. The latter encouraged Matta to pursue a career as an artist and urged him to explore painting.
In 1938, Onslow Ford’s patron and friend Richard Combe Abdy died, leaving him a considerable fortune. On his return, the two artists spent the summer in Travignon, Brittany, the ancestral land of their favorite surrealist painter, Yves Tanguy, where they experimented with painting and studied esoteric philosophies. The summer transformed their artistic practice, as they shifted their focus to exploring the unconscious and surrealist automatism.
Roberto Matta joined the surrealists first and then introduced Onslow Ford to André Breton, who invited him to join the surrealist group and attend meetings at the café Les Deux Magots. Onslow Ford thus became close to the writer Pierre Mabille and the painters Yves Tanguy, Estéban Frances, Wolfgang Paalen and Max Ernst. He also became a patron and collector, frequenting the studios of Picasso, Miró, de Chirico and André Masson.
Gordon Onslow Ford shared his studio with Victor Brauner. Too intimidated to paint in front of his friend, Gordon poured paint on the canvas thus discovered an automatic painting, calling it “Coulage”: he would pour Ripolin paint (an oil-based enamel paint that dries quickly) directly onto the canvas and then peel off parts of the pictorial layer to create a sense of depth.
The second world war and exile in new York
In the summer of 1939, Onslow Ford rented a château in Chemilleu in France, in the region of Rhône-Alpes, where he invited his friends André Breton, Jacqueline Lamba, Yves Tanguy, Roberto Matta, Estéban Frances and Kay Sage. The group spent the summer painting, exchanging ideas and reading poetry. They received regular visits from the American art collector Gertrude Stein and the writer Alice B. Toklas. The château was a veritable refuge on the eve of the Second World War.
When war broke out, Onslow Ford was drafted back to Navy and left Paris for London. The Society for the Preservation of European Culture – an American organization – invited a number of other surrealist artists to take refuge in New York. Matta and Kay Sage worked with the Society for the Preservation of European Culture to secure a visa for Onslow Ford to travel to New York in the winter of 1941. One of the few English-speaking surrealist artists, Onslow Ford was invited to give four lectures at the New School for Social Research and organized four surrealist exhibitions in 1941. These lectures and exhibitions were to have a major influence on American artists.
American writer Jacqueline Johnson, friend of Motherwell, attended the lectures and later met Onslow Ford. They married in 1941. That same year, the couple moved to Mexico and eventually settled in the village of Erongaricuaro, where they stayed for six years, receiving regular visits from their surrealist friends Wolfgang Paalen, Remedios Varo, César Moro, Sonja Sekula, Estéban Frances and Roberto Matta.
Gordon Onslow Ford, Erongarícuaro, Mexico, 1946
© Gordon Onslow Ford Archive & Lucid Art Foundation
Photo: Elisabeth Onslow Ford Rouslin
California and Non-Figurative painting
In 1947, Gordon Onslow Ford and Jacqueline Johnson moved to the United States and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. In 1948, Onslow Ford was invited to present a retrospective show at the San Francisco Museum of Art entitled Towards a New Subject in Painting. A year later, Onslow Ford acquired the ferryboat Vallejo, docked in Sausalito, and invited the Greek painter Jean Varda (1893 – 1971) to convert it into studios. For many years, the ferryboat was a haven for artists, becoming a small cultural center on the waterfront.
In the early 1950s, Gordon Onslow Ford attended lectures at the Asian Academy in San Francisco and studied Hinduism and Buddhism which influenced his art. He also extensively studied calligraphy from 1952-1957 with a Japanese master Hodo Tobase Roshi. At the same time, Gordon became friends with composer Harry Partch, a pioneer of minimalist music. He also adopted a non-figurative style of painting, based on line, circle, and dot. Eventually, Gordon Onslow Ford sold the ferryboat to Buddhist scholar Alan Watts.
In 1957, Gordon Onslow Ford and Jacqueline Johnson acquired a large tract of virgin forest in the hills of Inverness, California. Ten years later, they donated most of the land to an environmental organization, The Nature Conservancy, to preserve it. In 1964, Onslow Ford’s first book, Painting in the Instant was published by Harry N. Abrams, London. Onslow Ford’s paintings from the 1960s are characterized by an extremely limited palette, entirely composed of black and white. The works from that period are the result of an exploration of the meditative state. They are representations of the artist’s inner world. Onslow Ford recruited the chemist William Parles to create a paint similar to acrylic, which allowed black and white to dry at the same speed, which was not possible with oil-based paint.
Jacqueline Johnson died in 1976 while Onslow Ford was working on his second book, Creation, which was published two years later. In 1977, he was honored with a major retrospective exhibition at the Oakland Museum in California. After this major exhibition, Onslow Ford adopted a more solitary lifestyle, devoted to painting.
Lucid Art
In 1989, Gordon Onslow Ford met Fariba Bogzaran, an artist, lucid dream researcher, and professor at John F. Kennedy University (Berkeley, California). Together they embarked on a series of dialogues on art and consciousness. In her research, she discovered some of Gordon’s paintings were akin to transpersonal experiences in lucid dreaming and meditation. They collaborated on several books: Insights (1991), Ecomorphology (1994), and Once Upon a Time (1999). In 1996, Bogzaran curated Onslow Ford’s inaugural exhibition for the new M.F.A program on Arts and Consciousness at the John F. Kennedy University Gallery, Berkeley, California. The following year Onslow Ford was granted an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the University. In 1998, Gordon Onslow Ford, Fariba Bogzaran and Robert Anthoine co-founded the non-profit organization Lucid Art Foundation to explore the relationship between art, consciousness and nature through exhibitions, publications and seminars.
Gordon Onslow Ford died in Inverness, California, on 9 November 2003 at the age of 90. He left his estate to the Lucid Art Foundation (Inverness, California).
Gordon Onslow Ford in his studio on the Ferry Boat Vallejo, Sausalito, CA, États-Unis, 1956
©Gordon Onslow Ford Archive & Lucid Art Foundation
Gordon Onslow Ford in his studio on the Ferry Boat Vallejo, Sausalito, CA, États-Unis, 1956
©Gordon Onslow Ford Archive & Lucid Art Foundation
Gordon Onslow Ford in front of his studio, Inverness, CA, États-Unis, 1965
©Gordon Onslow Ford Archive & Lucid Art Foundation
SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Selected Public collections
Antwerp, Belgium, University of Antwerp Museum
Baltimore, MD, Baltimore Museum of Art
Bellingham, WA, Whatcom Museum
Berkeley, CA, Berkeley Art Museum
Boca Raton, FL, Boca Raton Museum of Art
Boston, MA, University of Massachusetts
Cambridge, MA, Fogg Museum, Harvard University
Charlotte, NC, Mint Museum
Davis, CA, University of California
Fort Lauderdale, FL, Fort Lauderdale Museum
Fort Lauderdale, FL, Nova Southeastern University Art Museum
Irvine, CA, University of California Irvine Institute and Museum of California Art
Laguna Beach, CA, Laguna Art Museum
Lincoln, NE, Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska
Logan, UT, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University
London, United Kingdom, Tate Modern Museum
Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Napa, CA, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art
New York, NY, Morgan Library & Museum
New York, NY, Museum of Modern Art
New York, NY, Solomon Guggenheim Museum
New York, NY, Whitney Museum of American Art
Oakland, CA, Oakland Museum of California
Pullman, WA, Museum of Art at Washington State University
Raleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art
Sacramento, CA, Crocker Art Museum
San Francisco, CA, de Young Museum
San Francisco, CA, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Diego, CA, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego
San Jose, CA, San Jose Museum of Art
Washington, DC, Smithsonian American Art Museum
West Palm Beach, FL, Norton Museum of Art
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Selected exhibitions
Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Paris, France, 1938
Salon des Indépendants, Paris, France, 1939
Surrealism, Zwemmer Gallery, London, United Kingdom, 1940
Exposición Internacional del Surrealismo, Galeria de Arte Mexicano, Mexico City, Mexico, 1940
New School for Social Research, New York, NY, 1941
Karl Nierendorf Gallery, New York, NY, solo exhibition, 1946
Towards a New Subject in Painting, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 1948
Dynaton, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, 1951
Alexander Rabow Galleries, San Francisco, CA, 1956
Gordon Onslow Ford and Richard Bowman, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, 1959
Paintings by Gordon Onslow Ford, Rose Rabow Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 1960
Gordon Onslow Ford, 1951-1962, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, CA, 1962
Fifty California Artists, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, 1962
Some Points of View-’62, Stanford University Art Gallery and Museum, Stanford, CA, 1962
Retrospective Exhibition of Drawings and Watercolors, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 1964
Rose Rabow Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1966
Dada, Surrealism, and their Heritage, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1968
Gordon Onslow Ford, Large Paintings, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 1970
Gordon Onslow Ford: A Partial Retrospective, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, solo exhibition, 1971
Other Landscapes and Shadow Land, Visionary Painting by Ten Bay Area Artists, University of Southern California Art Galleries, Los Angeles, CA, 1971
Rose Rabow Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1973
Gordon Onslow Ford, Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings, 1937- 1975, Pyramid Galleries, Washington, DC, solo exhibition, 1975
Dynaton re-viewed: a show of three painters of the Dynaton movement that was first exhibited in 1951 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art / Lee Mullican, Gordon Onslow Ford, Wolfgang Paalen, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco, CA, 1977
California: 5 Footnotes to Modern Art History, Dynaton Revisited, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, 1977
Surrealism and American Art (1931-1947), Rutgers University Art Gallery, New Brunswick, NJ, 1977
Surrealitat-Bildrealitat (1924-1974), Staalich Kunsthalle, Baden- Baden, Germany, 1977
Retrospective Exhibition (1931-1977), Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA, 1977
Creation, Galerie Schreiner, Basel, Switzerland, solo exhibition, 1978
Drawings by Painters, Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA, 1982
L’Échange Surréaliste, Grand Palais, Paris, France, 1982
Peinture Surréaliste en Angleterre 1930 – 1960, Galerie 1900- 2000, Paris, France, 1982
Artistic Collaboration in the Twentieth Century, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC, 1984
Surrealism: Work on Paper, Arnold Herstand and Company Gallery, New York, NY, 1984
Ceci n’est pas le surréalisme, California: Idioms of Surrealism, Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 1984
Galerie Samy Kinge, Paris, France, 1985
David Cole Gallery, Inverness, CA, 1986
The Interpretive Link: Abstract Surrealism Into Abstract Expressionism, Works on Paper 1938-1948, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach, CA, 1986
Minotaure, Musée Rath, Geneva, Swizerland, 1986
La Planète Affolée Surréalisme, Dispersion et Influences, 1938 – 1947, Centre de la Vieille Charité, Marseille, France, 1986
Moderns in Mind, Artists Space, New York, NY, 1986
Visions of Inner Space: Gestural Painting in Modern American Art, Wight Art Gallery, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 1987
The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1985, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, 1987
Smith Andersen Gallery, Palo Alto, CA, solo exhibition, 1990
El Surrealismo Entre Viejo y Nuevo Mundo, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Canary Islands, Spain, 1990
Anxious Visions: Surrealist Art, University Art Museum, Berkeley, CA, 1990
Pursuit of the Marvelous: Stanley William Hayter, Charles Howard, Gordon Onslow Ford, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, CA, 1990
Gordon Onslow Ford, Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, solo exhibition, 1991
André Breton et le Surréalisme, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1991
Light and Color – Dynaton Painters, Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1992
Dynaton, Before and Beyond, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Malibu, CA, 1992
Gordon Onslow Ford: Paintings of the Inner-Worlds, Harcourts Modern and Contemporary Art, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 1993
Gordon Onslow Ford: The World of Line Circle Dot, Pavilion at the Botanical Garden, Munich, Germany, solo exhibition, 1993
Gordon Onslow Ford, Galerie Brochier, Munich, Germany, solo exhibition, 1993
Lateinamerika und der Surrealismus, Bochum Museum, Bochum, Germany, 1993
Counterpoints: American Art 1930-1945, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY, 1994
Gordon Onslow Ford: A Retrospective, Bochum Museum of Art, Bochum, Germany, solo exhibition, 1994
Gordon Onslow Ford: Bilder / Paintings, Höcherl-Verlag, Munich, Germany, solo exhibition, 1994
Fifteen Profiles: Distinguished California Modernists, Fresno Art Museum, Fresno, CA, 1995
Gordon Onlsow Ford, Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, University of Santiago, Santiago, Chile, solo exhibition, 1995
Pacific Dreams: Currents of Surrealism and Fantasy in California Art 1934-1957, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA, 1995
Inner World Images of the Unconscious, Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1995
Quest of the Inner-Worlds: Paintings by Gordon Onslow Ford, A&C Gallery, JFK University, Berkeley, CA, solo exhibition, 1996
Gordon Onslow Ford: Werke 1938 – 1995, Künstlerforum Bonn, Bonn, Germany, solo exhibition, 1996
Hommage to the Getty, Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 1997
Surrealism and American Art 1932-1949, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, FL, 1997
Années 30 en Europe 1929-1939, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, France, 1997
Aspekte Imaginativer Kunst, Bochum Museum, Bochum, Germany, 1997
Through the Light: Exploration into Consciousness, A&C Gallery, JFK University, Berkeley, CA, 1997
Wegbereiter des Abstrakten Expressionismus in Amerika, Gordon Onslow Ford, Lee Mullican, Wolfgang Paalen, Kunstrverein Arnsberg, Nuremberg, Germany, 1998
The Surrealist Vision: Europe and the Americas, the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, CT, 1998
Gordon Onslow Ford: Mirando en lo profound / Seeing in Depth, Fundación Eugenio Granell, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, solo exhibition, 1998
The Surrealists in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain, 1999
Gordon Onslow Ford Paintings, Campbell-Thiebaud Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 2000
Made in California, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2000
Gordon Onslow Ford: Radiant Beings, Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, solo exhibition, 2001
Vital Forms: American Art in the Atomic Age, Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY, 2001
Gordon Onslow Ford Paintings, Herbert Palmer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, solo exhibition, 2001
Made in USA, l’Art Américain, 1908-1943, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, France, 2001
Gordon Onslow Ford: The Seminal Years, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2003
Gordon Onslow Ford: Recent Works, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 2003
Roberto Matta and Gordon Onslow Ford: A Vision Shared, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2003
Exploring the Open Mind: Paintings from the 1950’s and 1960’s, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 2003
Voyagers in Space: Paintings from the 1970’s and 1980’s, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 2004
Surrealism USA, National Academy Museum, New York, NY, 2005
The Great Spaces of the Mind: Paintings from the 1990’s to 2000’s, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 2005
Threshold of a New Art – Artwork of the 1950’s, A Selection from the Lucid Art Foundation Collection, California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco, CA, 2006
The Formative Years: Paintings from the 1930’s to 1940’s, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 2006
1937: Perfecktion und Zerstorung, Kunsthalle-Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, 2007
Gordon Onslow Ford: From the Vallejo: 1949-1959, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 2007
Dreams on Canvas, Nassau County Museum of Art, New York, NY, 2007
Landscapes of Consciousness, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2008
The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia,1860-1989, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, 2009
Cosmic: Artists Consider Astronomy, Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Sun Valley, ID, 2010
Gordon Onslow Ford: Paintings and Works on Paper 1939 – 1951, Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, New York, NY, solo exhibition, 2010
The Visionary Art of Morris Graves, Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2010
Surrealism: New Worlds, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2011
The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art, Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada, 2011
Gordon Onslow Ford: Voyager and Visionary, Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC, solo exhibition, 2012
Gordon Onslow Ford: Centennial Celebration, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2012
Stellar Orbits, Wendi Norris Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2012
Farewell to Surrealism: The Dyn Circle in Mexico, Getty Research Institute, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA, 2013
Gordon Onslow Ford: Centennial Celebration, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, solo exhibition, 2013
Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA, 2013
Action and Chance: A New Look at Drip, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2013
Image to Gesture 1945-1969: California Postwar Abstraction, David Findlay Jr. Gallery, New York, NY, 2013
Restless Universe: Inner Thought/Outer Space, David Findlay Jr. Gallery, New York, NY, 2014
Gordon Onslow Ford: Space Elements, David Findlay Jr. Gallery, New York, NY, solo exhibition, 2014
Western Light, Ecstatic Landscapes, Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, ID, 2014
Science in Surrealism, Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco, CA, 2015
Fields of Dream: The Surrealist Landscape, Di Donna Gallery, New York, NY, 2015
The Avant-Garde Collection, Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Ana, CA, 2015
Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, 1910–1950, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2016
Dessins surréalistes sur papier, Galerie 1900–2000, Paris, France, 2017
Los Modernos. Dialogues France/Mexico, Musée de Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, France, 2017
Dimensionism: Modern Art in the Age of Einstein, Berkeley Museum of Art, Berkeley, CA, 2018
Reverberations: A Visual Conversation, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, CA, 2018
Collecting on the Edge, Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University, Logan, UT, 2018
Hello World. Revising a Collection, Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, Germany, 2018
Ship of Dreams: Artists, Poets and Visionaries of the S.S. Vallejo, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma, CA, 2018; then 2019 at the Bolinas Museum, Bolinas, CA
Be Not Still: Living in Uncertain Times (Part I), di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA, 2018
The Surrealist Revolution in America, Napa Valley Museum, Yountville, CA, 2019
Surrealism in Mexico, Di Donna Galleries, New York, NY, 2019
FAULTline Art Show – The County Experience, Marin Civic Center, San Rafael, CA, 2020
Le surréalisme dans l’art américain, Centre de la Vieille Charité, Ville de Marseille, France, 2021
Gordon Onslow Ford and JB Blunk, Blunk Space Gallery, Point Reyes, CA, 2022
Gordon Onslow Ford: Member of the Lucid Art Movement, Findlay Galleries, New York, NY, 2022
Tertium Organum: Traversing Space, Center for the Arts Eagle Rock, Los Angeles, CA, 2022
Surrealism Beyond Borders, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom, 2022
Four Horizons, Blunk Space Gallery, Point Reyes, CA, 2023
In the Shadow of Mt. Tam, Anthony Meier Fine Arts, Mill Valley, CA, 2023
Same Blue as the Sky, Four One Nine, San Francisco, CA, 2023
Surréalisme, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, 2024
Roberto Matta: All Things Are Changing in All Dimensions, Blum Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, 2024
Gertrud Parker: The Possible, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Novato, CA, 2024
Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes, Hepworth Wakefield Museum, West Yorkshire, England, 2025.
Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 2025
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Selected bibliography
Gordon Onslow Ford, Painting in the Instant, Harry N. Abrams, London , 1964
Gordon Onslow Ford, Creation, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Schreiner AG, Basel, 1978
Gordon Onslow Ford Retrospective Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA, 1977
Gordon Onslow Ford, Yves Tanguy and Automatism, the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1983
Gordon Onslow Ford, Insights, Lapis Press, Culver City, CA, 1991
Gordon Onslow Ford, Ecomorphology: A Direction in Painting that Leads to Seeing in Depth, Bishop Pine Press, Inverness, CA, 1993
Andreas Neufert, Gordon Onslow Ford: Bilder / Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Höcherl-Verlag, Munich, 1994
Fariba Bogzaran, Images of the Lucid Mind: A Phenomenological Study of Lucid Dreaming and Modern Painting. Interviews with Gordon Onslow Ford, Roberto Matta, Lee Mullican and John Anderson (Doctoral Dissertation). Michigan, U.M.I., 1996.
Fariba Bogzaran (Ed.), curator. The Quest of the Inner-Worlds: Paintings by Gordon Onslow Ford, exhibition catalogue, contributions by Fariba Bogzaran, Charles Miedzinski, Gordon Onslow Ford, and Martica Sawin. Arts and Consciousness Gallery, John F. Kennedy University, Berkeley, CA, 1996
Fariba Bogzaran, curator, Through the Light: An Exploration into Consciousness, Arts and Consciousness Gallery, John F. Kennedy University, Berkeley, CA, Dream Creations, 1997
Gordon Onslow Ford, collaboration with Fariba Bogzaran, Once Upon A Time, Lucid Art Foundation, Inverness, CA, 1999
Peter Selz and Fariba Bogzaran, Gordon Onslow Ford: Exploring the Open Mind: Paintings from the 1950’s and 1960’s, exhibition catalogue, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, 2003
Martica Sawin, Gordon Onslow Ford: Voyagers in Space: Paintings from the 1970’s and 1980’s, exhibition catalogue, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, 2004
Fariba Bogzaran, Gordon Onslow Ford: The Great Spaces of the Mind–Paintings from the 1990’s and 2000’s, exhibition catalogue, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, 2005
Rowland Weinstein and Sepp Hiekisch-Picard, Gordon Onslow Ford: the Formative Years: Paintings from the 1930’s and 1940’s, exhibition catalogue Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, 2006
Fariba Bogzaran, curator, Landscapes of Consciousness: A Circle of Artists at the Beginning of Lucid Art, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 2008
Martica Sawin, Gordon Onslow Ford: Paintings and Works on Paper 1939-1951, Francis M. Naumann Gallery, New York, NY, 2010
Fariba Bogzaran, (Ed). Visionaries of the S.S. Vallejo: 1949-1969, contributions by Fariba Bogzaran, Linda Keaton, and David Keaton (curators), Elizabeth Stroman, and Laura Whitcomb. Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Sonoma. Lucid Art Foundation, Inverness, CA, 2018
Fariba Bogzara, (Ed). Gordon Onslow Ford: A Man on a Green Island, contributions by Dawn Ades, Tere Arcq, Fariba Bogzaran, Terri Geis, Sepp Hiekisch-Picard, Andreas Neufert and Ilene Susan Fort. Lucid Art Foundation, Inverness, CA, 2019
Roberto Matta, Red Hat, Green Hat, Lucid Art Foundation, Inverness, CA, 2024
Gordon Onslow Ford, Surrealist Painting: An Adventure into Human Consciousness, complete lectures from the New School for Social Research (January-March 1941), Introduction by Caterina Caputo, Lucid Art Foundation, Inverness, 2025
Gordon Onslow Ford in his studio, Inverness, CA, USA, 1978
© Gordon Onslow Ford Archive & Lucid Art Foundation
