More importantly, its the first time hes telling one of his fantastical tales through a woman.
Its also the first time his story is as much about the person as the animals.
Dodie Kazanjian:So tell me Walton, how did the two of you meet?
Walton Ford,Forse che si forse che no, 2024, Watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper
It used to be called the Palazzo Non Finito because it was never finished.
It was meant to be many stories high, and they only got to the first floor.
They didn’t know what to do about it.
Walton Ford,Desiderio infinito, 2025, Watercolor, gouache, and ink on pape
So the Marchesa bought it and moved in.
DK: How did you find out about her?
WF: By seeing a wall text at the Guggenheim Foundation.
Walton Ford,La Marchesa, 2024, Watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper
She was wild in the way she entertained.
There’s a lot of visual opportunity there for someone like me.
DK:So it was the person who led you to the animal this time.
Walton Ford,La levata del sole, 2025, Watercolor, gouache, and ink on paper
She appeared to be unhappily married when she was quite young.
She was always a striking figure, tall and slender, and she was a very great horse woman.
ApparentlyGabriele DAnnunzio, the poet, saw her and thought, this woman is my muse.
She would walk through the streets of Venice like this, unannounced, and make this appearance.
DK: She was waiting for you to paint her.
WF: But she always used this fearsome presence.
And she was a mother, and the wife of a marquis.
There’s a very famousphotograph of her by Man Ray.
DK:I know the picture but I didnt know it was of your Marchesa!
WF:She’s one of those overlooked but super-pivotal figures.
We know that Virginia Wolf and theBloomsburywomen threw off their corsets and started wearing eccentric clothing they designed.
But this is a very extreme version.
So she created a spectacle of herself.
And I focused on her cheetahs.
Maybe she didn’t care.
In my mind, that’s just a bad idea from start to finish.
I’m sure she loved them.
What a courageous and unhinged and amazing story she has.
This was the way she presented herself to the world when she was painted.
She was lovers withRomaine Brooks, who was a very great English portrait painter.
Romaine Brooks was a lesbian, very out of the closet about it.
She wore men’s clothing and she had girlfriends, and she did it without trying to pretend.
It wasn’t like she had some lavender marriage.
That was the way she wanted to present herself.
And the portrait gets at this ferocity she wanted to project.
DK:How does this compare to what you’ve done in the past?
WF:This is way more deliberately cinematic.
There’s a lot more dramatic, almost over the top lighting effects.
This was a decision because of her excessive, maximalist approach to life.
The show is calledTutto, which means everything.
And that’s how she lived.
She ended up broke in the 1950s, completely destitute on the streets of London.
People would see her looking in trash cans.
Yet she still was doing a sort ofSunset Boulevardmagnificence.
DK:But what was different about this show from all your others?
WF:What’s different is I decided to throw away any fear of bad taste or excess.
These are maximalist paintings.
It is influenced by all of that.
I don’t care.
Because she wouldn’t have cared.
DK:But in the past, you would have cared.
Artists are like rats that make their own maze that they then have to escape from.
(laughs) We set rules and then we break the rules that we set for ourselves.
So I was working within a range of restraint.
The restraint was the natural history art that got me started.
This endless way of linking me with Audubon.
DK:What do you think these link you to?
WF:More pop culture, cinema, Frank Frazetta, really dubious stuff.
The idea of even Leon Bakst and the Ballet Russes.
When I did my first show with Gagosian, it was in LA in Beverly Hills.
It was influenced by cinema, very stronglylighting effects, the MGM lion,King Kong.
DK:You finished a fifth painting just before your show opened, and its the most frightening.
The first four show the magnificence of the views across the lagoon.
But these alleys are where you spend most of your time when you’re walking around Venice.
The claustrophobiaalleys that might be almost 900 years old that have never seen the sun since they were built.
It’s an amazing thing.
He should get outside and play football.
I bought into that for a while.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Walton Ford, Tutto is on at theGagosian Gallery in New Yorkfrom March 6April 19, 2025.
