Peter Onstad

PETER ONSTAD was born in Mexico City and grew up in San Francisco.

Onstad attended the San Francisco Art Institute from 1963-1967 studying with Bay Area figurative painters Richard Diebenkorn, Joan Brown, and Bruce McGaw, Onstad left the Art Institute to live and work in New York. Upon returning to San Francisco, he received his Masters of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1973.

In the following years, he was part of the artistic and literary scene in San Francisco’s North Beach where many poets, writers, and artists gathered. His work at this time consisted of collages and mixed media constructions made from found objects. In the early 1980s, he began making large abstract paintings but returned to the figure after a few years. He continues to paint, exploring both the external world and the subconscious in his most recent work.

Peter Onstad’s work has been shown in the Yerba Buena Center, the Legion of Honor, the Richmond Art Center, the Hall of Flowers, the Diego Rivera Gallery, the San Francisco Art Festival and other Bay Area galleries, and can be found in private collections.

Peter Onstad now lives in rural Mendocino County, California.