Thom O'Connor
The fervent, highly executed prints by Thom O’Connor have long defined his role as a distinctly American icon and one of the most significant printmakers of the twentieth century. Yet a vital exchange during his early development is little known. While pursuing his Master's degree from Cranbrook in the late 1950s, O’Connor’s painting professor remarked, “Why are your paintings all black? You should go down the hall and try making some prints.” O’Connor credits the interaction as his primary introduction to a lifelong love affair with ink on paper.
Graduated from Cranbrook and a leader among the New Breed of Printmakers bringing fresh creative energies to the old process of pulling impressions from stone, metal and wood, O’Connor was awarded the responsibility for developing the State University of New York’s first graphics department on the thriving Edward Stone-designed Albany Campus. He succeeded, to world renown. O’Connor’s national and international professorships, his experiences as an early printer fellow with Tamarind Lithography Workshop and his early adoption of environmentally responsible techniques inspired an enduring pursuit for discovering new art-making techniques or, as Thom says, “solving puzzles” through the medium of printmaking.
Thom O’Connor is an internationally exhibited, critically acclaimed and widely collected artist. His work is represented in over 35 museum collections and has been broadly viewed via single-artist and group exhibitions throughout the United States, Abu Dhabi, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Denmark, England, Finland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Romania, Spain, Taiwan, Wales, and Yugoslavia.
Over the course of six decades, O’Connor’s dialogue has yielded a form of complex minimalism grounded in sensuous responses to nature, life’s mysteries, even the banal. Whether working in lithography, polymer gravure, intaglio, digital or collage, Thom O’Connor exhibits an unparalleled sensitivity for awakening the latent nature of the medium and releasing its soul. This sensory reality, which he refers to as “feeling”, remains foundational in his approach.
From large, luscious prints of other-worldly dimension
to small prints quietly transmuting the prose of life into
poetry, these richly visual, highly controlled works from
master printmaker Thom O'Connor embody the notion
of perfection.