Paintings from more than forty years of work have been gathered for this first publication of Thomas T. Wilson's work. His distinctive mark as a painter emerges from this juxtapostion of commissioned portraits, self-portraits, and landscapes. Trained as an artist at the University of Illinois, Yale, and the University of Oregon, Wilson came to the Northwest to settle in Port Townsend, Washington, in 1960. In 1962, the year of the Seattle World's Fair, an exhibit of New York School painters brought the work of Motherwell, Johns, and Rauschenberg to local attention. A 'Northwest School' of Tobey, Callahan, Graves, and Anderson had already been identified in a "Life" magazine article, and a new generation of local painters was developing. Well aware of the art scene both locally and nationally, Wilson developed his own subject matter and style. He maintained the traditional concerns of a painter, but also saw the canvas as part of the work, and not just a window for an illusion.Looking through pages of the book, the reader will see a constant movement toward simpler and larger paintings.
Soon after Wilson's move from Oregon to Port Townsend to live and work, he was discovered by discerning collectors. He brought a sympathetic eye to the Northwest landscape and climate, and his large paintings were a complement to the Northwest domestic architecture just then emerging. He painted portraits of his friends. They told their friends about Wilson, and soon he was painting people who wanted portraits congenial with their taste for modern abstract painting. Post World's Fair and pre-Microsoft Seattle was a time of significant cultural growth in all the arts - theatre, opera, dance, music, and architecture. Many of the people who were part of this growth sat for Tom Wilson and the portraits form a valuable record of Seattle's recent history. Wilson has captured a society in the cultural world it helped create.
