FILTER RESULTS × Close
by Artist (81)
by Object Type (16)
Skip to Content
NEHMA logo
Showing 22 of 105

Print this page
Image of Beanstalk

Gordon Onslow-Ford

British
(1912–2003)

Beanstalk
1960-1961

Parles paint on canvas
121.125 x 37.25 x 2 in.
Gift of the Marie Eccles Caine Foundation
1988.137

In 1951, while walking among the redwood groves in Northern California, Gordon Onslow Ford had the sudden insight that the line, the circle, and the dot were at the root of all art. Through study of calligraphy with Zen master Hodo Tobase, the artist also learned that they were the fastest lines one could make.

Beanstalk was the first large-scale painting that Onslow Ford made using Parle’s paint, a pioneering water-based product that dried quickly, allowing him to freely apply numerous coats, one over the other, yet obtain a spontaneous image. He experimented with versions of it as early as 1958, and from about 1959 until the late 1960s, all of the artist’s line/circle/dot paintings were in black and white and used Parle’s paint.


Onslow Ford painted Beanstalk on the floor of his studio with paint thrown from a container. He worked without a preconceived plan, one mark leading to the next. His intention was to combine an active meditative state with spontaneous creation, while revealing the vibrations he intuited between the two poles of the universe, one black, and the other white. The soaring vertical painting is a tightly woven and layered web of dancing particles. It suggests the experience of voyaging through cosmic space as well as inner worlds, a recurring theme of the artist’s work.


Although Onslow Ford had been a member of André Breton’s celebrated Paris surrealist group from 1938 to 1943, he felt that line/circle/dot was his contribution to modern art. At the time of his discovery, he was highly influential as a founder of the postsurrealist Dynaton group along with Lee Mullican and Wolfgang Paalen in San Francisco. He worked with the line/circle/dot system in some form for the rest of his life.

Susan M. Anderson

Keywords
Click a term to view the records with the same keyword
This object has the following keywords:
black, circles, lines, painting, polka dot, repetition, white

Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Also found in
Click a portfolio name to view all the objects in that portfolio
This object is a member of the following portfolios:
Thumbnail image of Collecting on the Edge
Collecting on the Edge
Thumbnail image of Collecting on the Edge Part II
Collecting on the Edge Part II
Thumbnail image of Paintings
Paintings

Your current search criteria is: Keyword is "HW".





This site facilitates access to the art and artifact collections by providing digitally searchable records for thousands objects. The information on these pages is not definitive or comprehensive. We are regularly adding artworks and updating research online. We welcome your comments.