Francis Ford (1945-2025)

Someone once called Francis Ford “the city’s house photographer” for framing moments in the lives of Mayor Henry Maier, bandleader Paul Cebar and artists Prophet Blackmon and Aaron Bohrod, among many others. Full disclosure: his portrait of me was displayed at Elsa’s on the Park in 1993. Ford, one of Milwaukee’s most respected photographers from the’70s through the ‘00s, died on Sunday, Dec. 14.

“Frank was the photo editor at Art Muscle. It was as if the magazine was made for him,” says Debra Brehmer, the magazine’s publisher in the ‘80s-‘90s and current director of Portrait Society Gallery. “He loved doing editorial work where he could be fully creative. Through the magazine, he also supported the work of many other photographers. Some of Frank's Art Muscle images are iconic, truly just brilliant: my favorites included his portrait of Richard Avedon, who was Frank's idol.

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Photo courtesy Julie Duchaine

Francis Ford

Francis Ford

“Frank lived and breathed photography,” she continues. “I remember many evenings after a few drinks when Frank would repeat again and again that his one true love was photography, everything else paled. I don't remember him ever saying no to an assignment and I don't remember him ever missing a deadline. Frank was preternaturally boyish, always enthusiastic, and fully engaged in being a part of the art magazine. He was also kind, funny, and a good listener. We both loved magazines and that created an unspoken bond—an understanding of what was so special about print media, of this particular creative act of invention that we engaged in every other month.” 

A 1972 graduate of MATC, Ford wanted to be a filmmaker but turned to photography because it allowed him to focus intensely on one character at a time. His photos were published in Rolling Stone, Time, the Chicago Tribune and Milwaukee Magazine. His 11 years at Art Muscle placed him at the center of Milwaukee’s cultural life in the late 20th century. Ford’s work was exhibited at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Minneapolis’ Holton Gallery, New York’s Harris Gallery and Milwaukee’s Portrait Society and KM Art Gallery. He published three books of photography in the ‘00s. Ford’s work often displayed humor but wore its irony lightly.

An instructor at MIAD for many years, Ford also took time to teach photography to kids at a language immersion school on 24th and Wisconsin. He told them, “Go out and photograph the world.”