BOND, MILTON WALLACE
(1918–)
is a prolific Connecticut artist who uses the medium of reverse painting on glass to produce pictures of sailing and steamships, historical battle scenes, and city views,featuring New York’s Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, Rockefeller Center, and the George Washington and Brooklyn Bridges.When Bond retired from his job as a tool grinder at the Remington Arms Co. in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1968, his sister taught him the technique of reverse painting on glass. Bond’s paintings vary in size, from one-inch square to thirty by forty inches. He paints on clear glass with a number of different types of paint as wellas India ink. He prepares a detailed drawing, places it under the glass, and traces it. Then he paints on the reverse side of the glass, first the details, then the background. Occasionally, he fixes tinfoil or metallic paper to the back of the painting, which adds a glow to the unpainted areas. Bond has completed more than 1,500 paintings.Sources for Bond’s compositions come from old prints and photographs. His interest in the sea relates to his heritage. In the 1500s the artist’s ancestor, Sir WilliamBond, owned a shipyard and built a flagship for the English king Henry VIII. Prior to his job as a tool grinder, Bond worked with his father as a commercial fisherman,operating a forty-foot oyster boat called the
Dorothy G.
His father’s death in 1950 ended Bond’s career at sea.Bond was awarded a silver medal in 1983, a bronze medal in 1984, and a gold medal in 1992 at the Swiss International Folk Art Exhibition in Morges, Switzerland,for artistic excellence. He was celebrated by the city of Bridgeport and given a one-man exhibition in 1996.
See also
Reverse-Glass Painting
.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Johnson, Jay, and William Ketchum.
American Folk Art of the Twentieth Century.
New York, 1983.Rosenak, Chuck, and Jan Rosenak.
Museum of American Folk Art Encydopedia of Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists.
New York, 1990
