Ship of Dreams: Artists, Poets and Visionaries of the S.S. Vallejo shares the story of how a decommissioned ferry boat became an important cultural crossroad in the history of California and America. Moored on the north side of Sausalito, California in 1949, the S.S. Vallejo became a dynamic home and cultural incubator for artists, musicians, and literary luminaries such as Gordon Onslow Ford, Alan Watts, Jean Varda, Allen Ginsberg, Wolfgang Paalen and many others.
It was a pivotal period in the development of California and American culture with many of its thought leaders gravitating around this singular place on the edge of San Francisco Bay. This exhibition surveys a spectrum of creative life aboard the S.S. Vallejo from 1949 to 1969 and presents important visual works of art by Onslow Ford, Varda, Paalen, Ruth Asawa, John Baxter, J.B. Blunk, Richard Bowman, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Luchita Hurtado, Pirkle Jones, Larry Keenan, Adaline Kent, Roberto Matta, Lee Mullican, and David Simpson along with vintage ephemera.