Lot 25
Thomas Torak
American, (20th/21st century)
Easter Sunday, still life
oil on canvas
Signed lower right.
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Biography from ThomasTorak.com: Thomas Torak is a modern master painter working in the classical tradition. His paintings are known for their breadth and luminosity, rich color and lively brushwork.
Shortly after high school, a visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art had a transformative effect on Thomas's life. There he encountered the Prometheus by the 17th century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens and vowed to spend the rest of his life drawing and painting. He moved to New York city and began studying at the Art Students League, first drawing and anatomy with Robert Beverly Hale then oil painting with Frank Mason. To support his studies he worked for a painting restorer in the morning where he learned to appreciate the physical structure of a painting, and, at Carnegie Hall, then later at the Metropolitan Opera, in the evening where he nourished his love of classical music. After a few years Thomas left the restoration job and began working in Mason's studio. He prepared paint and canvases for Mason's use, framed and crated paintings for exhibition, and learned what it was like to live the life of an artist. While at the League he met and fell in love with Elizabeth, and after leaving the League they worked side by side for the next 15 years in their New York city studio developing their artistic visions and exhibiting. Looking for space to create larger paintings they relocated to Vermont where they now work in adjoining studios.
Thomas is dedicated to the classical tradition, an artistic philosophy which includes the artist preparing his canvases, mediums, and hand ground paints. An expert still life, figure, and landscape painter, Thomas refers to his paintings as visual poetry. His love of classical music is evident in his work. He likes to say he listens to what he is painting. You can often see this in the titles of his work such as Adagio for Peonies or Variations on a Theme by Cezanne. He once had an entire exhibition of Nocturnes inspired by, and dedicated to, Chopin.
In 2008 Thomas was invited to join the roster of instructors at the Art Students League of New York as an instructor of portraiture and figure painting. He now teaches in the same studio where he learned to paint, where his teacher, Frank Mason, taught for 57 years, and his grandteacher, Frank Vincent Dumond, taught for 59 years. "It's important to me," Thomas says, "to pass on to the next generation of artists what was so generously given to me."
In addition to his gallery representation and solo exhibition Thomas has competed in numerous juried exhibitions where his paintings have won over 100 awards including Gold Medals from the American Artists Professional League, Audubon Artists, and the Academic Artists Association, and a silver medal from Allied Artists of America. In 2017 the American Artists Professional League elected him to signature membership, only the 12th artist to receive this honor in the organization's 89 year history. Thomas's work has been seen at the Butler Institute of American Art, the Springfield Museum of Fine Art, the Huntsville Museum of Art, the Bergstrom-Mahler Museum, the San Diego Art Institute, the National Academy Museum, the Krasl Art Center, the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, the Wiregrass Museum of Art, and the Chautauqua Art Galleries.
- Dimensions: 29 1/2"H x 32 1/2"W (sight), 36"H x 40"W (frame)
- Medium: oil on canvas
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