"I have the feeling that everything in my world floats and that the personages and their surroundings are interactive, that their exact positions in relation to each other are determined by forces of repulsion and attraction."

—Gordon Onslow Ford, Towards a New Subject in Painting, 1948

Gordon Onslow Ford painting in his studio on the S.S. Vallejo, 1955

In 1949 Gordon Onslow Ford and poet- painter Jean Varda rescued the S.S. Vallejo, a decommissioned ferryboat about to be disassembled and sold for scrap. They docked her at Gate 5 in the abandoned shipyards north of San Francisco in Sausalito. Onslow Ford and Varda proceeded to renovate the boat and build their studios there. Forrest Wright, an architect and recent graduate of the famed Black Mountain College, would also move his studio to the boat. They could not have imagined that the Vallejo would become a flash point for the artistic renaissance that would take place in the Bay Area in the 1950s.

The combination of Onslow Ford's and Varda's history, interests, and personalities proved to be an immediate draw to artists and thinkers. Onslow Ford had been a member of the Surrealist movement and was already an established painter. He would also become involved with many of the Eastern philosophers who were now living in California. Varda, a poet and collagist, was well known for his charismatic, extroverted personality throughout the Bay Area.

The S.S. Vallejo became a meeting place for some of the most interesting and important people in the Bay Area. Artists Lee Mullican, Wolfgang Paalen, Roberto Matta, Mark Tobey, Stephen and Lucienne Dimitroff, Ruth Asawa, Richard Bowman; writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Henry Miller, Kenneth Rexroth, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Maya Angelou, Gerd Stern; cultural figures Alan Watts, Haridas Chaudhuri, Hodo Tobase, Herb Caen, Timothy Leary; musician Harry Partch; filmmakers Frank Stauffacher and James Broughton; printer Jack Stauffacher; curator Grace McCann Morley—all came on board. This period in Bay Area history served as a preamble to the Beat movement and fostered the wider integration of Eastern philosophies into mainstream America, giving the stage that was set on the Vallejo a resonance far beyond its North Bay dock.

This exhibition presents the paintings that Gordon Onslow Ford made on the Vallejo from 1949 to 1959, the period in which this boat became a cultural beacon for the Bay Area. Notably, it includes recently discovered works Onslow Ford had stored and labeled: "First Paintings from the Vallejo."

The Bay Area in the late 1940s and early 1950s, like today, attracted more than its fair share of individuals who were seeking an outlet for artistic expression in an autonomous but supportive environment. As with the rest of the world, the Bay Area had suffered during World War II, but the region seemed to rebound very quickly from any psychic damage, and it was primarily a place of unfettered optimism and energy. Onslow Ford and his wife, writer Jacqueline Johnson, were among those who recognized this. They moved from Mexico to California in 1947. This move was significant in that instead of returning to his native England, to Paris or New York, where he was already established, Onslow Ford chose California—a place he considered a frontier for new ideas and where he saw potential for the development of a new art.

Onslow Ford and Johnson first traveled to Big Sur, where they visited their friend writer Henry Miller. Through Miller, they met Greek-born artist Jean Varda. They soon moved to San Francisco, and Onslow Ford found a temporary studio in the Petri Building in North Beach. Meanwhile, Varda had moved to the Bay Area, and both painters began to look for a studio together, beyond the city proper. Sausalito, where they discovered the Vallejo, was attracting a number of artists who were drawn to its many former Navy shipbuilding sites that were now abandoned and could be easily converted into affordable studio space.

Once settled on board, Onslow Ford began almost immediately working on paintings for the exhibition that would become Dynaton—a collaboration with Austrian-born Mexican expatriate Wolfgang Paalen and American painter Lee Mullican. The Onslow Fords had invited Paalen and his wife, Luchita Hurtado, to visit the Bay Area. They arrived in 1949 and decided to stay. Onslow Ford had met Mullican through Jack Stauffacher, who had served together in the army during the War. Stauffacher, the proprietor and printer of The Greenwood Press, had printed the exhibition catalogue for Onslow Ford's 1948 solo show at the San Francisco Museum of Art (SFMA, later SFMOMA), titled Towards a New Subject in Painting.

Gordon Onslow Ford with Roberto Matta on the S.S. Vallejo, 1956

Grace McCann Morley, the visionary director of the SFMA had cultivated an expectation for avant-garde art in the Bay Area. Onslow Ford's solo show was one in a line of cutting-edge exhibitions at the museum, including one-man shows by Clyfford Still, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. The Dynaton exhibition took place at SFMA in 1951 and featured new work by Onslow Ford, Paalen, and Mullican. Together with the catalogue essays by Paalen and Johnson, this exhibition manifested a new concept in art aptly called "Dynaton" or "the possible."

That same year the American Academy of Asian Studies was founded by businessman Louis Gainsborough. Gainsborough traveled frequently in Asia and felt it was important for the West to understand Eastern philosophies more fully. He contacted Frederic Spiegelberg, a professor of comparative religion at Stanford, who agreed to teach at the school and also to invite other professors to join the faculty. Among the people Spiegelberg brought aboard were Indian scholar and philosopher Haridas Chaudhuri and Zen Buddhist scholar Alan Watts, both of whose lectures were influential and helped bridge the East-West divide.

Onslow Ford was among the Academy's first participants. As he himself recounted: "I first of all spent a year sitting at the feet of Haridas Chaudhuri . . . [who] grounded me in Vedanta and Hindu metaphysics. And after that, I went and studied Buddhism with Alan Watts." Onslow Ford and Watts would become close friends, and it was Watts who first introduced him to the master calligrapher Sabro Hasegawa. One day Onslow Ford invited Hasegawa to his Vallejo studio and for the first time saw a great master creating a "live line." Later Onslow Ford studied calligraphy extensively with Hodo Tobase, who taught at the Academy.

For Onslow Ford, the impact of the associations he made with the scholars at the Academy on his art cannot be underestimated. The Vallejo years represent perhaps the period of Onslow Ford's most important artistic transition—from his Surrealist tendencies to a new level of painting expressing consciousness through live lines. As he later explained: "when you get into the inner worlds, everything is visible and therefore the line becomes paramount."

The co-mingling of ideas and people on the Vallejo would also intersect with the blossoming of the San Francisco Renaissance and the rise of the Beat poets. By the early 1950s, the Bay Area had a thriving poetry scene, which included Kenneth Rexroth, considered the father of the movement. Rexroth had persuaded Lawrence Ferlinghetti to move to the city, where in 1953 he established the famed City Lights Books. The Beat movement was galvanized in October 1955 when the Six Gallery reading took place, attended by Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Philip Lamantia, and Robert Duncan, among others. On this night many of the Beats read in public for the first time, including an unknown poet named Allen Ginsberg who read a poem called "Howl."

Both Rexroth and Duncan were well acquainted with Henry Miller, who of course was good friends with Varda and Onslow Ford. Snyder had studied with Watts at the American Academy of Asian Studies. Through these connections, the groups came together on the Vallejo—possibly at Varda's famous and frequent gatherings. Watts would be instrumental in introducing the Beats to Eastern thought, specifically Zen Buddhism, which would become integrated into the Beat literature and lifestyle. Over the years he developed closer personal ties to the Beat poets, culminating in the "Houseboat Summit" with Watts, Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder, which took place on the Vallejo in 1967.

For Onslow Ford, the Vallejo period was pivotal. He would paint everyday on the boat overlooking the Bay, and for inspiration he would take walks in Muir Woods. These walks, combined with his exposure to the Eastern influences of Chaudhuri, Tobase, and Watts, refined his thinking and painting. In 1951 he had the epiphany of the line, circle, and dot as the root of all art. As he looked into this infinite space that would define the rest of his life's work, he eventually came to realize that he needed to have a constant exposure to the wilds of nature. In 1958 he and Jacqueline acquired a large piece of land in the forested hills of Inverness, where he began building his home and studio. Within a year he left his studio on the Vallejo. This exhibition bears witness to a significant period of Onslow Ford's artistic path, and these paintings—all made on the Vallejo—exemplify a unique dimension of this diverse world.

Chronology of Gordon Onslow Ford's S.S. Vallejo Period

1947Gordon Onslow Ford and his wife, Jacqueline Johnson, move from Mexico to California

". . . the choice was whether to go back to New York and be with people, or to come to the West Coast and be in the country. Jacqueline and I both chose the country. I just had to go on working and discovering on my own. I just wanted to be in peace and to work. And so we came to California."

They live at 343 Chestnut Street in San Francisco. The artist sets up a studio in the Petri Building on Jackson Street. He also has his extensive art collection brought to California. The collection, created with the advice of André Breton, includes works by de Chirico, Magritte, Miró, Picasso, Braque, Léger, Ernst, Matta, and others. Their home quickly becomes an important artistic center. He would sell the majority of his collection during his life to support his art.

1948A retrospective of Onslow Ford's work titled Towards a New Subject in Painting takes place at the San Francisco Museum of Art (now SFMOMA).

Clockwise from lower right: Luchita Hurtado,
Jacqueline Johnson, Lee Mullican, Wolfgang Paalen,
and Gordon Onslow Ford in San Francisco at the
time of the Dynaton exhibition, 1951

1949Onslow Ford and painter/poet Jean Varda look for a studio together outside the city. They find the S.S. Vallejo, docked at Waldo Point at the north end of town in Sausalito. Onslow Ford, Varda, and architect Forrest Wright acquire the boat and divide it into three sections. Varda, who moves his home and studio on board, takes the end facing the Bay. Varda's studio would come to epitomize the Bohemian life, making art and socializing with an array of Bay Area artists, Beat writers and poets, and philosophers. Onslow Ford converts the north section of the boat into his studio; he does not live on the boat but uses it on a daily basis. As a former British Navy sailor he feels at home on the boat and will use the design of a ship for two of his future studios.

The San Francisco Museum of Art hosts the "Western Roundtable on Modern Art," organized by Douglas MacAgy, director of the California School of Fine Arts, who was instrumental in supporting the Bay Area figurative artists. Participants include Gregory Bateson, Kenneth Burke, Marcel Duchamp, Mark Tobey, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Andrew Ritchie, among others. Onslow Ford meets Tobey at this three-day event and renews his connection with Duchamp. Man Ray joins them from Los Angeles. Onslow Ford becomes close friends with Tobey and will meet Morris Graves through Tobey in Seattle.

Onslow Ford meets painter Lee Mullican. The Surrealist painter Wolfgang Paalen, visits the Bay Area, along with his wife Luchita Hurtado, at Onslow Ford's invitation. Paalen, Onslow Ford, and Mullican, with key ideas contributed by Johnson, work together on a group show called Dynaton after the root of the Greek word "Dyn" (meaning "the possible," and also the name of Paalen's influential magazine) to take place at the San Francisco Museum of Art.

1950Paalen and Hurtado move to a house at 95 Magee Avenue in Mill Valley, north of San Francisco. Onslow Ford creates several paintings on the Vallejo that will be featured in the Dynaton exhibition.

1951Dynaton exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art.

Paalen moves to Paris. The Onslow Fords purchase his home in Mill Valley. Mullican and Hurtado move to Southern California.

The American Academy of Asian Studies is founded by Louis Gainsborough in San Francisco. There Onslow Ford begins studying with Indian scholar Haridas Chaudhuri, which brings about major revelations in his art. In June while walking among the ancient redwood trees in Muir Woods, he has a life-changing revelation:

"Every afternoon I would walk in Muir Woods. . . I was making paintings influenced by the redwoods, a lot of paintings with parallel lines in them. Suddenly it came to me, I think it was induced by the landscape, that the root of art was line, circle, dot. I came back and started making landscapes with line, circle, dot, and I abandoned everything else and became interested in developing this idea."

1952Onslow Ford becomes an American citizen. He begins studying Zen Buddhism with Alan Watts, an instructor at the Academy, who introduces him to Japanese calligraphy master Sabro Hasegawa. Onslow Ford invites Hasegawa to his studio on the Vallejo where Hasegawa ceremoniously prepares ink for two hours and then paints six lines and the character for infinity. This experience will have a lasting impression on Onslow Ford.

Hasegawa gives several tea ceremonies on the ferryboat. Among the guests are Stephen and Lucienne Dimitroff, assistants to Diego Rivera and friends of Onslow Ford and Johnson. Hasegawa has to return to Japan but will later come back to California and teach at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC).

1953Onslow Ford studies Chinese and Japanese calligraphy with Hodo Tobase, Zen master of the Soto sect, at the Academy. Among the other students are the Dimitroffs, Ruth Asawa, Adeline Kent, and Chip Metson.

Onslow Ford starts working on a book with Alan Watts. They meet weekly on the ferryboat to discuss ideas. Watts writes the text and Onslow Ford works on the painting. It is called NOTHINGK.

The Onslow Fords meet the American composer and experimental musician Harry Partch at the Dimitroffs' home and hear tapes of Partch's King Oedipus. The Onslow Fords support Partch and help him acquire a studio near the Vallejo. Onslow Ford will paint the covers for Partch's albums Plectra and Percussion Dances and Oedipus Rex: Sphinx.

1954Watts and Onslow Ford decide not to publish their book, as their philosophical styles and attitudes are too different. Onslow Ford continues studying calligraphy and Zen with Tobase.

1955Onslow Ford teaches a studio class at CCAC in Oakland, and at the end of the year holds an exhibition, Instant Painting, at the CCAC auditorium.

The Six Gallery reading takes place in which a number of the Beat poets read in public for the first time, galvanizing the Beat movement.

1956Roberto Matta and his wife Malitte visit the Onslow Fords, staying for six months. Onslow Ford gives a section of his studio on the Vallejo to Matta, who creates a number of paintings on the boat.

1958With Johnson, Onslow Ford acquires a large piece of land in Inverness, California, near Point Reyes, and begins building a home and studio there.

1959Onslow Ford begins to make black-and-white line, circle, dot paintings. He experiments with William Parle's paint and has a show with Richard Bowman at the San Francisco Museum of Art. He leaves the S.S. Vallejo and invites his friend David Cole to start a gallery on board, which Cole runs for three years. Eventually Onslow Ford will gift his part of the boat to Alan Watts, who lives on board until his death in 1973.

Varda will live and work on the boat until his death in 1971.

Onslow Ford will live and work in Inverness until his death on November 9, 2003.

Catalogue jointly conceived and written by Dr. Fariba Bogzaran, Jasmine Moorhead,
and Briana Tarantino.

Gordon Onslow Ford: From the Vallejo, Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco, October 2007. Exhibition produced in collaboration with the Lucid Art Foundation. © 2007 Weinstein Gallery, San Francisco.