John Bevan Ford (18 April 1930 – 16 September 2005) was a Māori artist and educator who started exhibiting in 1966. He is a leading figure in contemporary Māori art with art held in all large public collections of New Zealand. In 2005 Ford received the Creative New Zealand Te Waka Toi Kingi Ihaka Award. Ford is mostly known for his ink drawings of landscape and kahu (cloak - traditional Māori weaving). His paintings have been seen world wide appearing in more than 20 solo exhibitions. His paintings reference the Māori art forms of kōwhaiwhai (which are rafter paintings of a wharenui / Māori meeting house) and whakairo (Māori carving patterns).Notable elements in his work are cloaks floating above significant landforms and pacific rim works where symbols from indigenous pacific rim countries are laid out against outlines of the land. His use and research of kōwhaiwhai puts him alongside other contemporary Māori artists who also explored kōwhaiwhai in their art including Paratene Matchitt, John Hovell and Sandy Adsett. Pine Taiapa was someone who taught Ford in this area. Cloaks are used by Ford in many of his artworks. This represents, 'ancestral lineage as well as sacred, collective and personal history...'. Ōwae marae gateway, Waitara Notable carvings by Ford are the Gateway at Ōwae Marae, Waitara and the Meeting House, Te Aroha o Aohanga in Wairarapa. Ford designed a logo and artwork that was incorporated into the Palmerston North City Library. In the Raglan exhibition catalogue of Māori Artists of the South Pacific (1984) Ford said: "Even when not used directly, the proven symbols of the past provide models by which new symbols may be judged.