Thomas Locker

Thomas Locker (1937 — March 9, 2012) was an American painter and author[1] He was born in New York City and died in Albany, NY.[2]

Thomas Locker teaching at Shimer College

At age six Thomas Locker was discovered and given an apprentice training in traditional European oil painting by painter Alberto Romano.[3] His family then moved to Washington D.C., where his father worked as a lobbyist, and where, at age seven, he won first prize in the children's division of the Washington Times Herald art fair. Locker was graduated at the University of Chicago with an A.B. in Art History,[3] later giving credit to his teacher Joshua Taylor, then Professor in that Department, later Director of the painting collection of the Smithsonian Institution. Locker then returned to Washington, where he received an MA from the American University, before travellng in Europe.[4] Within a few years his more than fifty-gallery exhibition career began in 1964, at the Banter Gallery, New York City.[3] After years of painting 17th C Dutch-inspired oil landscapes (selling through the Sears Vincent Price Gallery, Chicago), and working as a college teacher at Franklin College and Shimer College, Mt Carroll, Illinois, Locker began work for children's books, producing, from 1984, over thirty popular illustrated books—mostly written by him—for children and young adults in that unusual style, many of which became staples of school libraries, receiving the New York Times 'Best Illustrated of the Year' and the American Library Association 'Best Books for Children' and other awards. He also illustrated books for other popular writers such as Jean Craighead George.

However, following a near-death aneurysm, Thomas Locker returned to full-time oil painting of the sublime in the American landscape.[3][5]

Partial list of books
  • Water Dance
  • Sky Tree
  • Where the River Begins (Picture Puffins)
  • Cloud Dance
  • The Mare on the Hill (Picture Puffins)
  • The Boy Who Held Back the Sea
  • Home: A Journey through America
  • Family Farm (Picture Puffins)
  • Sailing with the Wind
  • The Young Artist (Picture Puffins)
  • To Climb a Waterfall
  • Catskill Eagle
  • Mountain Dance
  • Walking With Henry: Based on the Life and Works of Henry David Thoreau
  • John Muir: America's Naturalist
  • Anna and the Bagpiper
  • Rachel Carson: Preserving a Sense of Wonder
  • The Land of Gray Wolf
  • Miranda's Smile
  • Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle
  • In Blue Mountains: An Artist's Return to America's First…
  • Snow Toward Evening: A Year in a River Valley : Nature Poems Selected by…
  • Hudson: The Story of a River
  • The Ice Horse
  • Thomas Locker; the new American realism
  • Thomas Locker : American landscapes : [exhibition] September 16-October 4,…
  • The man who paints nature
  • Rip vanWinkle
  • American Landscapes

Notes
  1. "The Life and Work of Thomas Locker". Barbsbooks.com. Retrieved 2012-10-03.
  2. "Obituary: Thomas Locker". Publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 2012-10-03.
  3. Thurlow, Kendra (August 28, 2008). "Hudson River in the Pioneer Valley". Valley Advocate.
  4. Thomas Locker, Sky Tree: Seeing Science Through Art (New York: HarperCollins Publishing, 1995 (unpag.).
  5. For further critics' characterisations and assessments of Locker's painting, see the Carrie Haddad Gallery publication http://www.carriehaddadgallery.com/index.cfm?method=Artist.ArtistDetail&ArtistID=56C9027C-115B-5562-AA1F1E9F305670FD
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