Courtesy J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, jrusselljinishiangallery.com
During an intense moment in a yacht race, a striking red, white and blue sail flares against a muted backdrop in Willard Bond’s 28- by 30-inch watercolor-on-board painting Setting the Spinnaker. “Bond creates paintings not around what the boats look like, but what it feels like to be aboard or nearby, watching them move fast,” wrote J. Russell Jinishian, an authority on contemporary marine art, in his 2003 book Bound for Blue Water.
Born in 1926 in Colfax, Washington, Bond began drawing and painting landscapes at age 12. His love of boating began on his grandparents’ houseboat on Idaho’s Lake Coeur d’Alene, where he spent his childhood summers.
Bond enlisted in the U.S. Navy the day after his 18th birthday in 1944. While stationed at the naval base in Chicago, he received his first formal training as an artist, attending night classes at The Art Institute of Chicago. In 1945, Bond’s ship, the USS Montpelier, was among the earliest U.S. vessels to land in Japan to evacuate prisoners of war. Honorably discharged from the Navy in 1946, Bond continued his education as an artist at the Pratt Institute School of Art in Brooklyn and the Art Students League in Manhattan. He eventually settled in Manhattan.
Bond was in the city in 1976 for U.S. Bicentennial celebrations, which brought square-rigged tall ships from around the world to New York Harbor. As Pier Master of the South Street Seaport, he had a unique opportunity to board the vessels that became his muse. Seeking more contemporary subjects, he later turned to the 12 Meter America’s Cup racing scene in Newport, Rhode Island. These boats would inspire him for the rest of his life.
Bond sailed out of Long Island Sound on his own 18-foot wooden sloop and later out of East Hampton on his 33-foot Chesapeake Bay skipjack. As his reputation grew within the racing community, he was invited aboard 12 Meters during practice heats, sailing on Freedom during the 1984 America’s Cup races.
A master oil painter and watercolorist, Bond had a career that spanned more than 70 years before his death in 2012. “I’m a sailor, and I’ve always been an abstract painter,” Bond said in a 1998 interview. “I guess I’m blessed with a gift that brings it all together.”
