walton ford’s bestiary
Walton Ford (West County, NY, 1960) spent many weekends during his youth in New York’s American Museum of Natural History. He studied film and design, but it was worthless. By that time, all his talent was focused on telling animal stories through painting. The animal illustrations that he saw in that wonderful museum were tattooed in his mind. The first time we look at these animal illustrations in real scale, John Audubon comes to our mind, but we soon realize that Walton Ford’s paintings are not just animal reproductions. His paintings open a door to magical realism. His paintings create the anxiety that we feel when we cannot tell a good dream from a bad one.
He has the same great ability as the classic nature illustrators, but in his works, animals don’t pose; they are mysteriously, but understandably alive.
He has the same great ability as the classic nature illustrators, but in his works, animals don’t pose; they are mysteriously, but understandably alive.
