American, b. December 20, 1944, Chicago, Illinois
Lives and works in Minneapolis, Minnesota
frankgaard.com

Drawing inspiration from a mix of subjects, including pop culture, politics, personal relationships and underpants, Frank Gaard's jarring and deceptively simplistic artworks yell color. He wants them to be sweet and taste good. He says, there's beauty and a little hot sauce in everything he does.

Growing up in the "City of Broad Shoulders" and attending the Art Institute of Chicago in the 1960's, Gaard was exposed to the strongly figurative painting style and bizarre, even vulgar imagery of the Hairy Who and the Chicago Imagists. His huge confrontational paintings and various painted assemblages may contain penises, sexy ladies, underwear, religious imagery, and rock 'n' roll details, but their day-glo candy color forces grins from viewers. Since the mid-1980s, he mainly has been creating portraits of family members, artist friends and fictional characters.

Gaard created and published the legendary underground ’zine Artpolice (1974–1994), in which he and other contributors blended cutting social criticism with a brutish drawing style often compared to that of comic artist R. Crumb. 

Frank Gaard is represented in the collections of The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and The Art Institute of Chicago. His work is in many private art collections as well.