Charles Henri Ford

Birthday: February 10th, 1908 Date of Death: September 27th, 2002 Place of Birth: Hazlehurst, Mississippi, USA

Charles Henri Ford was many things in addition to filmmaker. A pioneer of American surrealism, Ford’s creative activities as a poet, photographer, publisher and general bohemian bon vivant, spanned much of the last century and cultivated intimate connections and collaborations with legendary intellectual and artistic figures ranging from Gertrude Stein to Andy Warhol. Paralleling his artistic trajectory in the avant-garde, as an openly queer man, Ford’s life and work was also at the vanguard of mid-twentieth century sexual politics, and like his gay colleagues and contemporaries— Allen Ginsburg and Kenneth Anger, for example— Ford’s art fused his outsider sexual status with the vital underground sensibility of the poets, painters, and filmmakers with whom he associated. (from: http://pdome.org/2014/johnny-minotaur-with-mm-serra-from-the-new-york-film-makers-cooperative-in-person-25th-anniversary-party/)