Barbara Earl Thomas
CREDIT: Jovelle Tamayo for The New York Times
Barbara Earl Thomas is a Seattle-based visual artist with numerous national exhibits to her credit and an active art-making career that spans more than 30 years. A skilled painter who now builds tension-filled narratives through papercuts and prints, placing silhouetted figures in social and political landscapes, she pulls from mythology and history to create a contemporary visual narrative that challenges the stories we tell as Americans about who we are. Thomas is also known for her large-scale installations that use light as the animating force and invites her viewers to step inside her world of illuminated scenography. Thomas’s works are included in the collections of the Seattle, Tacoma and Portland Art Museums, Chrysler Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Microsoft, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Washington State and Seattle City public collections. Thomas recently completed commissioned work at Yale University’s Hopper College as well as two major exhibitions, Geography of Innocence, Seattle Art Museum (November 2020 – November 2021), and Packaged Black, a collaboration with New York based artist Derrick Adams at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington (October 2021 – May 2022). Upcoming solo exhibits include Claire Oliver Gallery (November 2022), and Chrysler Museum of Art (February 2023).
In 2022 Thomas was appointed as an Associate Fellow at Yale University. In 2016, she received the Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award and, the Washington State Governor’s Arts award, the Artist Trust Irving and Yvonne Twining Humber Award and the Seattle Stranger Genius Award for excellence in the arts. She was also nationally noted for her exhibition “Heaven On Fire,” a major career survey with The Bainbridge Island Art Museum. Her work has been widely featured nationally; with the John Braseth Gallery at the Seattle Art Fair (2016), and at EXPO Chicago (2017, 2018) and Pulse Contemporary Art Fair (2018-21) with Claire Oliver Gallery (New York)
Thomas is a graduate of the School of Art, University of Washington, where she received her Master of Arts in 1977. She counts herself most fortunate to have had mentorships with Michael Spafford and Jacob Lawrence who have both influenced her work. She will tell you that these two men were not only supportive but crucial friends in her life.
Education
2000 Flight of the Mind Writer’s Workshop, Oregon
1977 M.F.A., University of Washington, Seattle
1976 University of Grenoble, France
1973 B.A., University of Washington, Seattle
Awards and Honors
2018 Seattle Girls School’s Grace Hopper Outstanding Achievement Award, Seattle, WA
2016 Seattle Magazine‘s Hall of Fame, Arts and Culture, Seattle, WA
2016 Governor’s Arts and Heritage Award, Individual Artist Award, Washington State
2016 Stranger Genius Award in Art, Seattle, WA
2016 The Irving and Yvonne Twining Humber Award, Artist Trust, Seattle, WA
2016 Women’s University Club, Brava Award—for exceptional achievements
2015 Artist in Residence, Pilchuck School, Stanwood, WA
2014 Artist in Residence, Museum of Glass, Tacoma, WA
2014 Artist in Residence, Goathead Press, Tieton, WA
2013 Mayor’s Arts Award, Office of Arts and Culture, Seattle, WA
2009 Hauberg Fellowship, Pilchuck Glass School, Stanwood, WA
2003 Poster Design Award, Bumbershoot, A Seattle Arts Festival, Seattle, WA
2002 Visual Arts Honors Program, Seattle Collects, Award, Seattle Arts Commission, Seattle WA
2002 Jack Straw Writer’s Award, Seattle, WA
1999 Hedgebrook Writer’s Residency Retreat, Whidbey, WA
1998/2001 Seattle Artist Writer’s Award, Seattle Arts Commission, Seattle WA
1998/2006 Neddy Award Nominee, The Behnke Foundation, Seattle, WA
1997 Artist Trust Tenth Anniversary Presidents’ Award, Seattle, WA
1996 The Howard S. Wright Award, Seattle Arts Commission, Seattle WA
Public Art Installations
2023 Sound Transit Public Art Program, I-90 Portal interior art design project, Seattle, WA
2022 Yale University, Hopper College Commission, New Haven, CT
2020 Multnomah County Central Courthouse, Portland Regional Arts & Culture Council, Portland, OR
2019 Boulevard Park, Library, Burien, WA
2011 Story Stones, Portage Bay Park, Seattle, WA
2009 The Story House, Evergreen State College, Washington State Arts Commission, Olympia, WA
2008 Electric Raven, Walden Triangle, Sound Transit, Seattle, WA
2001 Art in Public Places Hatch Cover Design Award – Raven Shouts Water, Seattle, WA
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2023 Illuminated Body, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
2022 A Joyful Noise, Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY
2021 Packaged Black, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA
2020 The Geography of Innocence, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
2017 The Blood Catcher and Other Stories, Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY
2016 Heaven on Fire, Bainbridge Island Art Museum, Bainbridge Island, WA
2013 The Reading Room, Prints 2006-2013, Paper Hammer, Seattle, WA
2005 Big Fish, The Meadows Museum, Shreveport, Louisiana
2005 Elements, Evansville Museum of Arts and Science, Evansville, IN
2005 Last Seen: Altar of Memory, an installation, Edmonds Community College Gallery, Edmonds, WA
2003 A Fire in the Landscape, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA
1998 In Fire and Water, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA
1997 Barbara Earl Thomas: An Exhibition, Olympic College Art Gallery, Bremerton, WA
1995 The Book of Telling, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA
1994 The Fallen House, Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, WA
1990 Requiem for a Tilted World, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA
1990 Talking Back to the Storm: New Figurative Work by Barbara Thomas, Mitchell Museum, Mt. Vernon, IL
1989 Art Gym: Gallery 2, Marylhurst College, Marylhurst, OR
1985 Sheehan Gallery, Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA
1984 Recent Work, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA
1984 Executive Office Gallery, King County Courthouse, Seattle
1983 Art Center Gallery, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, WA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 Untitled, Miami Beach Art Expo, Miami, FL
2021 For Now, Claire Oliver Gallery, New York, NY
2018 Impatient Obsessions, PULSE Miami Beach, Claire Oliver Gallery, Miami, FL
2018 Shattered, ExpoChicago, Claire Oliver Gallery, Chicago, IL
2018 Becoming American, English and American camps, San Juan Island, WA
2017 Lines of Influence, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA
2017 Dark and Stormy Night, The Gothic in Contemporary Art, Lehman College Art Gallery, Bronx, NY
2017 ExpoChicago, Claire Oliver Gallery, Chicago, Ill
2016 Seattle Art Fair, Woodside/Braseth Gallery, Seattle, WA
2015 Out of Sight, A survey of contemporary art in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle WA
2015 Sterotype, Northwest African American Museum, Seattle WA
2015 Good Neighbor, Seattle University, Seattle WA
2014 Ink This, Contemporary Prints in the Northwest, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma WA
2014 Inner Portraits, Bainbridge Island Art Museum, Bainbridge Is., WA
2013 Best of the Northwest, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
2010 Safeco Collection, The Wright Space, Seattle, WA
2010 Northwest Women Artists 1880-2010, Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, WA
2009 A Concise History of Northwest Art, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
2009 What is Black? , Seattle Art Museum
2003 Northwest Traditions, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
2000 Building Community: Truth & Reconciliation, A Work-in-Progress Part II, Patricia Wismer Women’s Center, Seattle University
1999 Drawing Revisited, Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
1999 Memory & Mourning: American Expressions of Grief, Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, WA
1999 Civil Progress: Life in Black America, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, WA
1996 Raven: Icons and Omens, Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA
1996 The Narrative Impulse: Visual Storytelling, Rental Sales Gallery, Seattle Art Museum
1995 Wings, Rental Sales Gallery, Seattle Art Museum
1995 Washington: 100 Years, 100 Paintings, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA
1995 Art Works for AIDS, Seattle Center Pavilion, (also 1990)
1994 A Matter of Colors III, The African Connection, Pacific Arts Center, Seattle Center
1994 The Northwest Art Collection of the Junior League of Seattle, Kinsey Gallery, Seattle University
1993 The Art of Microsoft, Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle
1993 XX: An Exhibition on the Occasion of the Women’s Caucus for Art National Conference, Francine Seders Gallery II, Seattle, WA
1992 Documents Northwest, The PONCHO Series: 1492/1992, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
1991 Pleas and Thank Yous: 100 True Stories/Collaborators, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
1991 25th Anniversary Exhibitions: The Middle Years II 1981-1983, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle
1989 Washington to Washington: Women in Art Today, Washington State Museum of Art, Pullman, WA; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; and The Nordic Heritage Museum, Seattle, WA
1989 Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR
1988 School of Art 1975-1988, Safeco Corporation, Seattle, WA
1987 Northwest ’87, Seattle Art Museum
1987 Aesthetics of the American Northwest, The Evans‑Tibbs Collection, Washington, D.C.
1987 Masks: A Contemporary Perspective, Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, WA
1986 Poetry in Art, Francine Seders Gallery, Seattle, WA
1986 Figure: Narrative, Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Bellingham, WA
1985 Seattle Painting 1925‑1985, Bumberbiennale, Seattle, WA
Collections
21 Century Museum Hotels, Louisville, KY
4 Culture Portable Works Art Collection, Seattle WA
Bainbridge Island Art Museum, Bainbridge Island, WA
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
City of Everett, Portable Works Collection, Everett WA
City of Seattle 1% Portable Works Collection, Seattle, WA
Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
Henry Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle WA
Junior League of Seattle, Seattle, WA
King County Arts Commission 1% Collection, Seattle, WA
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN
Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
Portland Regional Arts Council and Culture Council, Portland OR
Safeco Corporate Collection, Seattle, WA
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Seattle First National Bank, Seattle, WA
Sound Transit Authority, Seattle, WA
Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA
University of Washington Medical Center Collection, Seattle, WA
Walker Richer & Quinn Inc., Seattle, WA
Washington Arts Consortium, WA
Washington State Arts Commission, Portable Works Collection, Kent, WA
Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN
Western Washington State University, Bellingham, WA