Gordon Onslow Ford (1912 - 2003)

Gordon Onslow Ford

Gordon Onslow Ford was a painter, watercolourist and draughtsman.

At the time of his death at his home, he was among the last of the Parisian Surrealist group, which he joined in 1938. While still in Paris before the Second World War, Onslow Ford developed a technique called coulage, anticipating the method made famous by Jackson Pollock. By letting enamel paint flow freely onto a canvas, he took advantage of the effects of chance so admired by the Surrealists in their quest for automatic processes that could tap into the unconscious. Sometimes he superimposed lines and geometric shapes on fluid, indeterminate forms to bring order and stability to the canvas. In the same years, he also produced landscapes full of biomorphic forms. Finely crafted paintings of this type, often incorporating cryptic symbols, continued to evolve for some time thereafter. In California, he continued his quest to represent an inner world in harmony with nature by imagining ineffable ethers supporting abstract forms and floating points of light.