Draft:Ford Beckman

Ford Beckman (b. Clancy Beckman Oct. 24, 1952 – November 18, 2014) was an American golfer, colorist, pop and abstract painter.

In the early ‘70s, the televangelist Oral Roberts was building an athletics program at his university, and the school offered Beckman a golf scholarship. Beckman majored in art.

In 1972, he opened Clancy's, a small apparel shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He married Cynthia Harmon in 1973. In 1980, Dick Jacobson, a silk dealer in new York City arranged a meeting between Beckman and fashion designer Ralph Lauren. Lauren helped Beckman establish himself as a designer, within a few months of their meeting the Ford Beckman label's licensing was managed by International Management Group, an arrangement which lasted for the next eight years. He continued designing textiles after relocating to Connecticut.

In 1986, he was nominated for Cutty Sark Men's Fashion Awards most promising U.S. menswear designer. Beckman estimated he earned an annual salary of six to seven figures throughout the ‘80s, and he bought 16 paintings by Jean-Michel Basquiat before the artist’s death, as well as a number of pieces by Jeff Koons and Julian Schnabel. In 1988 Coloroll acquired Beckman’s business as part of a larger purchase and discontinued the fashion line.

He rose to prominence in the New York art scene of the late 1980s. At the start of his art career, Beckman created The Black Wall Paintings, depicting deep, black squares against yellowing backgrounds, first purchased by Count Giuseppe Panza, who was among the first to buy works by Robert Rauschenberg and James Turrell.

A loan in the millions of dollars taken to diversify his art collection as a hedge against the ups and downs of a career in art with purchases of David Salle, Jeff Koons, Sean Scully, Keith Haring, and Ross Bleckner immediately before the "art market crash of 1991" left Beckman struggling to make ends meet.

In the early 1990's the Beckmans returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma to better address the care of his daughter Isabella, a special needs child.

He produced silkscreened clowns in Pop Paintings, then the "La Roma" series of paintings produced in reclusive friend Cy Twombly's studio in Gaeta, Italy. German art dealer Adolf von Ribbentrop became Beckman's European dealer and paintings sold well during this period. Unfortunately, von Ribbentrop became seriously ill, and sales fell to a trickle, forcing Beckman to sell his personal art collection bit by bit and eventually his home to pay down his crushing debt.

The Beckmans moved into an apartment in Connecticut until 2002, when Cynthia’s father in Oklahoma became ill. They planned only a short stay, but with his father-in-law’s deteriorating health, Beckman found himself stuck in Tulsa and financially unable to return to the East Coast. Unable to find suitable work he eventually took a job selling donuts at a Tulsa Krispy Kreme franchise an eventually an evening shift packing meats. After finding work redesigning offices for college friend Ben Farrell, Beckman suffered a massive heart attack on May 25, 2007. His financial worries continued, the IRS's public auction for all of his remaining items in storage raised only $200,000.

Beckman died of another heart attack at age 62.

His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Essl Collection, Vienna.

Exhibitions

2004 Visions of America - Sammlung Essl – Kunsthaus, Klosterneuburg Regards - Artiscope, Brussels

2002 Ford Beckman – if looks could kill – The Pop paintings - Galerie Brennecke, Berlin

1996 Kestnergessellschaft Hanover, Germany

1993 Galleria Il Ponte - Florence, Italy

1992 Ford Beckman’s Clown Paintings - El Punto Gallery – Rome, Italy Hans Mayer Gallery, Dusseldorf

1991 Tony Shafrazi, New York City

1988 Craig Cornelius Gallery, New York City