Biography

Born into a family of artists in 1912 in Wendover, England, Gordon Onslow-Ford died in 2003 in Inverness, California. Although Onslow-Ford is British, he spent most of his career in Northern California and was highly influential in the Bay Area. He had a large retrospective exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now SFMOMA) in 1948 and the Oakland Museum of California in 1978 in addition to exhibits in numerous museums and galleries. His work is included in public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Tate Britain in London. This painting would be the first by the artist to join the SJMA permanent collection. (SJMA Collections Committee, 2006)

Born into a family of artists in 1912 in Wendover, England, Onslow-Ford served in the British Navy before moving to Paris in the late 1930s to pursue a career in art. In Paris, he joined the Surrealist movement led by Andre Breton. In 1941, he moved to New York along with other Surrealist artists to escape World War II. Since he was one of the few English-speaking Surrealists, he became the spokesperson for Surrealism in New York and organized four exhibitions of Surrealist art. His lectures and exhibitions helped spread the Surrealist influence to the New York School as well as influencing Jackson Pollack and Robert Motherwell. In the late 1940s Onslow-Ford moved to San Francisco and, along with Lee Mullican and Wolfgang Paalen, formed the Dynaton group. Onslow-Ford became a legendary figure in the Bay Area art scene and had a large retrospective exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now SFMOMA) in 1948 and the Oakland Museum of California in 1978. Onslow-Ford died in Inverness, California in 2003. [Bio from Juicy Paint Exhibition, input by R. Faust, 8/1//2010]

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