09/16/2022
“I have always worked in the ‘abstract,’ borrowing whimsical shapes from the stage of dance performances and ballets I've designed, and geometric shapes from architectural drawings for buildings I've designed. Painting gives me the freedom to incorporate both.” —Tom H. John
Tom H. John is a polymath who applies his creativity to numerous fields, but is first and foremost a visual artist. After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago, John pursued an array of diverse projects, most notably in set design and production, while always pursuing fine art. His artwork is inspired by Georges Braque, František Kupka, the Bauhaus Movement, and the surrealist motifs of Paul Klee and Julius Bissier. The influence of John’s experiences in architecture and set design remain apparent in his works.
Tom John's wide-ranging oeuvre illustrates the artist's deep engagement with the shifting visual languages of American Modernism. Meticulous and organic, referential and abstract, John's dynamic work displays a unique synthesis of and expansion upon the diversity of modernism as it impacted the arts, science, media, and technology throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first.
"Laidley House, San Francisco" (2001) and "Untitled" (2017) by Tom John are on view in Out From Under Our Brushes: 20th Century American Modernism until September 23. To see more works by John, visit our viewing room here: https://tinyurl.com/yckpb8we