Events
Screening
Walton Ford Selects
November 17–22, 2023
Metrograph, New York
metrograph.com
Walton Ford has curated a selection of films as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph. The program features five films that explore extreme psychological states in their storylines and use pioneering and sometimes unconventional acting and cinematographic techniques to achieve the result. Ford explains, “These films dive deep into characters in ways that are sometimes harrowing and always completely surprising. None of these films are cliché or pat, and all share an unorthodox style or method. As a narrative painter, I seek to explore subjects and tell stories in this way.”
Featured films include
At Land (1944, directed by Maya Deren)
Heat Lightning (1934, directed by Mervyn LeRoy)
Meshes of the Afternoon (1943, directed by Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied)
Naked (1993, directed by Mike Leigh)
The Sword of Doom (1966, directed by Kihachi Okamoto)
Still from The Sword of Doom (1966), directed by Kihachi Okamoto
Screening and Talk
Walton Ford
Waris Ahluwalia
Friday, November 17, 2023, 8pm
Metrograph, New York
metrograph.com
Join Walton Ford and designer and actor Waris Ahluwalia for a conversation and screening on the occasion of Walton Ford Selects, a film program curated by the artist as part of a series copresented by Gagosian and Metrograph. The pair will discuss how the selected films share an unorthodox style or method and delve into characters in ways that are sometimes harrowing and always surprising. After the talk, a trio of films—Heat Lightning (1934), Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), and At Land (1944)—will be screened.
Still from Heat Lightning (1934), directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Book Signing
Walton Ford
Pancha Tantra
Saturday, August 27, 2022, 3pm
Taschen Store, East Hampton, New York
www.taschen.com
Walton Ford will sign copies of the updated edition of his book Pancha Tantra (2020). The most comprehensive survey of the artist’s work to date, the expanded publication features forty new works, more than 120 additional pages, and a new essay by the artist. These appear alongside a text by Bill Buford, excerpts from Ford’s textual inspirations—including Indian folktales, the letters of Benjamin Franklin, and The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini—and a complete biography of the artist. The event is free and open to the public.
Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra (New York: Taschen, 2020)
In Conversation
New Social Environment
Cabeza de Vaca: Walton Ford
Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 1pm EDT
As part of the Brooklyn Rail’s online series New Social Environment, Walton Ford joins the journal’s editor-at-large Jason Rosenfeld for a conversation about the artist’s current eponymous exhibition at Gagosian, 555 West 24th Street, New York, as well as his practice in general. In these daily lunchtime Zoom conversations, invited artists, writers, filmmakers, and poets discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality with Brooklyn Rail staff. The talk will conclude with a poetry reading by Lee Ann Norman. To join the online event, register at brooklynrail.org.
Installation view, Walton Ford, Gagosian, 555 West 24th Street, New York, March 11–April 23, 2022. Artwork © Walton Ford. Photo: Rob McKeever
Auction
Bomb Magazine
40th Anniversary Benefit Art Auction
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Capitale, New York
bombmagazine.com
Bomb magazine’s annual gala and benefit art auction will celebrate its fortieth anniversary in New York on April 13, where art luminaries including Walton Ford and Linda Goode Bryant will be honored. The auction benefits Bomb, a nonprofit that has been publishing conversations between artists of all disciplines since 1981. This year’s auction features work by over thirty artists including Walton Ford, Vera Lutter, and Mary Weatherford. To attend the event, purchase tickets at shop.bombmagazine.org.
Walton Ford giving a talk at his exhibition at Gagosian, 555 West 24th Street, New York, 2022. Artwork © Walton Ford. Photo: Gabriella Chu
Talk
Walton Ford on Eugène Delacroix
Friday, December 14, 2018, 7–8pm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
www.metmuseum.org
As part of the Met’s Artists on Artworks and MetFridays programs, Walton Ford will discuss Eugène Delacroix’s images of animals, a subject important to his own practice, in conjunction with the exhibitions Delacroix and Devotion to Drawing: The Karen B. Cohen Collection of Eugène Delacroix currently on view at the museum.
Top: Walton Ford, Un Homme Qui Reve, 2018 © Walton Ford. Photo: Tom Powell Imaging. Bottom: Eugène Delacroix, Young Tiger Playing with Its Mother, 1830, Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Franck Raux
Announcements
Video
Walton Ford
A Bubble in the Lake
In this video produced by the Louisiana Channel for the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark, Walton Ford talks about his challenging childhood and upbringing, his early appreciation of nature, and his endless love of large watercolors. Ford was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in June 2023 in the artist’s studios in New York City and Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
Still from “Walton Ford: A Bubble in the Lake”
Museum Exhibitions
On View
Walton Ford
Birds and Beasts of the Studio
Through October 20, 2024
Morgan Library & Museum, New York
www.themorgan.org
This exhibition celebrates the gift by Walton Ford of sixty-three studies to the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. The works include detailed renderings made from observation in zoos and museums of natural history, quick compositional sketches, and small watercolors in which Ford establishes his color scheme. Birds and Beasts of the Studio also features animal drawings selected by Ford from the museum’s collection, including works by Peter Paul Rubens, Dorothea Maria Gsell, Eugène Delacroix, Antoine-Louis Barye, and John James Audubon.
Walton Ford, Study for Flucht, 2018, Morgan Library & Museum, New York © Walton Ford. Photo: Janny Chiu
Closed
Walton Ford in
Symbiosis: Part 1
June 10–July 24, 2022
Berkshire Botanical Garden, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
russ-berkshirebg.pantheonsite.io
Aiming to aesthetically incorporate artworks into the Berkshire Botanical Garden, Symbiosis sites works both outdoors within in the landscape and indoors in the Leonhardt Galleries. The exhibition focuses on the interaction between two organisms that mutually benefit each other, while also speaking in a greater sense about the interconnectivity of all living things. Work by Walton Ford is included.
Walton Ford, Study for Distinguished Stranger, 2022 © Walton Ford
Closed
Book of Beasts
The Bestiary in the Medieval World
May 14–August 18, 2019
Getty Center, Los Angeles
www.getty.edu
This exhibition is inspired by The Bestiary, a popular medieval book that describes the beasts of the world with vibrant and fascinating images. With over one hundred works on display, this major loan exhibition transports visitors into the world of the medieval bestiary. Work by Walton Ford and Damien Hirst is included.
Walton Ford, Grifo de California, 2017 © Walton Ford. Photo: Christopher Burke