Biography

MILTON BOND

American Folk Artist

Milton Bond is one of the very few folk artists working in the exacting medium of reverse-glass painting. Born in New York City in 1918, Bond began to draw at the age of five, but an active lifestyle, as a New England sailor and oysterman, prevented him from devoting much time to his art. For years, he was the master of one of the last commercial sailing ships operating out of Long Island, and his trips up-and-down the coast of New England and in-and-out of New York harbor offered a wealth of experience and visual memories.

More than forty years ago, Bond began to set these visions down, but he did not do so on canvas, wood or paper, as is the case with most folk artists. Instead, he turned to reverse-glass painting, an ancient art practiced in Europe and America. The painting is done in oils on the back of a piece of clear glass. The glass protects the painting. The painting must be done in reverse of the usual order, the tiny frontal details put in first and the background last. It is very demanding work, but Bond mastered this difficult technique without any professional help. The small size of his works makes his art even more remarkable.

Bond’s paintings, bucolic rural scenes with a calming tone, and busy urban vistas churning with activity, are suffused with a strange background light achieved by the effective use of oils on the transparent surface. The foregrounds of his paintings are filled with the kind of details of which folk artists are so fond; engineers can be glimpsed in the cabs of tiny locomotives; specks of mother-of-pearl attached to the glass (a technique well known to earlier reverse-glass painters) cause the many windows of a city office building to glow with the colors of a setting sun.

Mr. Bond’s work is in numerous major collections including those of the Grand Palais in Paris, the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., the Museum of American Folk Art, New York City, the Henri Rousseau Museum, Paris, and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. His work has been exhibited throughout the world and he has been the recipient of countless awards. Milton Bond’s art is currently exhibited at Gallerie Je Reviens, 991 Post Road East, Westport, CT.