Larry Thomas

Jordan Schnitzer Printmaking Residency
2019, 2015, 1991

Larry Thomas's work is represented in the collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. as well as numerous other public and private collections.  He was the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowships and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art SECA Award; had numerous solo and group exhibitions regionally and nationally, and has work in the permanent collections of artist's books at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Houghton Library at Harvard University, and Stanford University's Cantor Center among others.  His many awards and accomplishments included; visiting scholar in residence at the American Academy in Rome, resident artist at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Ragdale Foundation, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.  He retired in 2005 from teaching and administrative positions at the San Francisco Art Institute where he served in several capacities from 1981 until 2005, including Associate Professor of Printmaking, Chair of the Department of Printmaking, Dean of Academic Affairs, and Interim President.

Thomas taught drawing workshops at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the coast of Oregon for many years. In 2010 he conducted a similar concentrated drawing course at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts at Deer Isle, Maine.  In 2008-09 he served as Visiting Tutor at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland, and conducted a specialized workshop in drawing at Bennington College under the sponsorship of North Country Studio Workshops.  Additionally, he served on many grant panels and participated in several international cultural exchanges sponsored by the Ford Foundation and Columbia University and the U.S.I.A.  He served on the Board of Directors for the Alliance of Artists Communities, the Headlands Center for the Arts, on the Advisory Council for the Flintridge Foundation, and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.  He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Memphis Academy of Arts, his Master of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute, and an Honorary Doctorate from the Memphis College of Art.  Thomas lived and worked in the rural northern California coastal community of Fort Bragg before passing away on January 6, 2023.

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