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Ad Code: 3
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An example of work by Tom Taylor
Photo provided by Tom Taylor
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| The following, submitted December 2005, is from the artist.
Though Tom Taylor’s greatest recognition came in the late 1980’s as a
wildlife artist his art career has been long and diverse: even
including that of being known under a different version of his name,
Thoss W. Taylor, during his Hollywood years as a “conceptual artist”.
He was raised on a Colorado farm near Longmount and cultivated his love
of animals there, but chose very early on to pursue his knack for
art. Following many years of exploring many styles, mediums, and
solo exhibits, he lived in Africa in 1978 where he was taken by the
abundance of wild animals. He quickly discovered the base for what was
to become his signature work, wildlife art. He did a series of
fine-art posters for the Field Museum of Natural History in
Chicago. His simple, elegant, hard-edged images drew the
attention of the major international licensing agent, , which, in turn,
led him to contracts with the World Wildlife Fund, The National Audubon
Society, and other companies.
He began to establish his earliest reputation as a fine artist when he
dropped out of the University of Colorado in 1964, exhibiting in
several Colorado one-man shows, one in Washington D.C., beginning with
somewhat somber, hard-edged, casein paintings of faceless children,
then progressing to sensitive pencil portraits within hard-edged
environments.
In 1965, Barbara Haddad wrote in The Denver Post about this
early work: . . . "with neither sentimentality nor cynicism, Taylor is
proving himself a precocious master of perception for people as
individuals. He can do this…because his seemingly effortless technique
lets the viewer concentrate on the subject, unconcerned about how its
striking air truth was achieved. While his eye is uncritical – like
Daumier and Toulouse-Lautrec before him – merely catch people when
they’re satirizing themselves.”
His move to Hollywood in 1965, led to free-lancing and a job as an art
director for a record company where he designed album covers and had
his first two solo exhibitions of art, this time, exploring the field
of minimal art – simplistic pencil lines on illustration board, some of
them slightly hinting at the subject of clapboard siding. The
exhibit was favorably reviewed by Henry Seldis in The Los Angeles Times.
Beginning in 1969, while working as a Beverly Hills needlepoint
designer, and known as Thoss Taylor, he set out to produced a
“conceptual art” series of Photostats. There were 100 8x10’s of
each piece, many of them collaborated, and co-signed, (some of them
with persons of note: such as etiquette guru, Amy Vanderbilt, and the
controversial screenwriter and a patron of his work, Dalton Trumbo),
built around the concept of the word, “confine”, questioning what his
culture held sacred. There were 100 different pieces created,
signed and numbered. And one hundred of these collections in
total for use as multiple concurrent exhibits. An agent for this
project was a contemporary Los Angeles art dealer who placed “The
Confines of Thoss W. Taylor” as a one-man show in eighteen museums,
universities, and galleries from coast to coast in 1972 and
beyond. And since that time, it has been exhibited in several
other galleries. A Taylor retrospective of the work was held at
the University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado, in 1983; and
within another retrospective in his home town of Longmont, Colorado, in
1989, at The Longmont Museum.
Taylor dropped out from the Los Angeles art scene in 1972 and moved to
the mountains of northern California where he took his first
significant break from art. He managed a cattle ranch, a fruit
orchard and worked as a dairyman. He moved to Zambia in 1978
where he became a realistic wildlife artist, using dime-store
watercolor paints inherited from an American friend. He also did
work for the Zambia Wildlife Conservation Society. Then, for a ZWCZ
calendar, he began to develop the hard-edged painting style that would
eventually become his characteristic, signature work.
He returned to the U.S. in 1980; did several solo exhibits of realistic
African wildlife paintings in acrylic. He considered this period
of work mediocre though it sold well. Wildlife realism was just
not his specialty. Settling in Denver, he also began development
of a large contemporary series, known as the Expectations Series---activated
men’s suits, bodies, and other garments, topped by hangers instead of
heads. Also he did other radical alternative style art, much of
it cynical and/or political. One of the best-received shows
featured work either made of or about white bread as a symbol of
shallow American values. This work was shown in co-op galleries
for several years. He was doing all of this while further
perfecting and producing his “breadwinner” graphic wildlife images.
During this period, Taylor was comfortable with a sort of double life:
commercial work as well as somewhat 'Bohemian' work. Following
are comments by reviewers during that time.
1983, The Reporter Herald, August, Phyllis Walbye, “Tom Taylor, Retrospective Exhibition”,
University of Northern Colorado. “…strong imagery…The works reflect the
pop culture of two decades, and the eloquent thoughts, ideas and
musings of an artist who has been no wide-eyed Candide, but has
repeatedly returned to the beauty of the world after feeling it’s
pain.”
1988, May 18, Rocky Mountain News, Jennifer Heath, “Eating the
Dream”. “Tom Taylor is like a human prism. The facets of his art mark
achievements many artists fear as well as envy.”
1990, September 5, Westword Magazine, “Give Him A Hand”, Nancy
Clegg, p.28, about Taylor’s “With Liberty and Justice for All” one-man
gallery exhibit in Denver. “Taylor consistently confirms my idealistic
belief that the creation of art should be – can be – an act of
integrity.”
In 1995, he became restless with the intensity of the precision of
hard-edged painting, and so began to develop a series of rough-surfaced
animal pieces with mixed media, more loosely rendered, wildly colored.
This work was not well met in May of ’96 at a solo exhibit, by a public
which continued to expect his same style. This was his last one-man
show.
From his first one-man show in 1964, to his last in 1996, he had been featured in more than four-dozen solo exhibitions.
In September of 1996, Taylor was suddenly struck by critical illness
and was told that his life was very near its end. At that time,
he began the dispensation of the bulk of the remaining pieces of his
art – some by gift/donation, some by quick-sale – the shutdown of his
licensing business, and the “last goodbyes” to his friends and
acquaintances. However the severe illness, though real, had been
misdiagnosed and he did not die. Nonetheless, it exacerbated the
beginning for reestablishing an entirely new baseline for his everyday
existence from that time on. For the first time in his life, he
lost his desire to paint or make art. He became withdrawn and
reticent. He and his companion left the city and moved to a more
private place atop a rocky ridge in southern Colorado to live an
insular life.
Eventually the reticence broke in 2000, and he discovered a desire to
write. He became a poet, working under a pen name, widely
published in dozens of independent “small press” magazines, and writing
predominately about the darkness of man’s
condition.
MAGAZINES
1971, May, Pace Magazine, “Thoss Taylor Centennial Gift…”, Lea Flanders, p.2
1981, September, Choice Magazine, “Return of the Artist”, Libby James, p.34
1985 April, Post Electricity, “Canvases, Collectors and Cash”, Theresa Schiavone, p.12
1985 Club Ties, “The Arts, Eyeless in Gotham”, Jane Fudge
1985, January, Art Business News, “Museum Art Posters Catch On Big”, p.27
1985, March, Guide Magazine, front cover art, also p.29
1985, November, Art Business News, “Picture Gallery”, p.13
1985 November, The Artist’s Magazine, “If the Suit Fits”, Bebe Raupe, p.32
1986, September, Midwest Art, “Escaping the Confines”, Amy Ward, pp. 66-
1987, Summer, Artspace, “Colorado Letter”, Nancy Clegg
1990, Quest, “Tom Taylor, Hovering in the Wings”, Dan Thigpen, p.21
1991 WildBird, “Birds In Art, An Introduction To The World Of Avian Art”, Todd Clausnitzer
1991 September, Wildbird, “Project Puffin”, Stephen Kress, p.36
1992, September, Triangle, “International Artist Displayed”, p.15
1992, November, Wildlife Art News, “Artist Vignette: Tom Taylor”, Todd Wilkinson, pp.154-155
1992 November, Wildlife Art News, November, “The Artwalk”, p.190
1992, October, Art Business News, “Picture Gallery”, p.54
1994 U.S Art’s Wildlife Guide, “Don’t Fence Them In”, Phil Davies p.52, see also p.78
BOOKS
Birds in Art, 1991, color
American Artists: An Illustrated Survey of Leading Contemporaries.
Art and the Animal, 1992, color
Art and the Animal, 1993, color
Art and the Animal, 1994, color
Birds in Art 25th Anniversary, 1976-2000, John Forester, 2000
Beasts, Guernsey’s catalog, 1995, color
Audubon Wildlife Report 1988-1989, color, front cover
Audubon Wildlife Report 1989-1990, color, front cover
Natural Wonders, John and Alice Woodson Forester Miniature Collection, p.43, 1994, color
Christie’s South Kensington Wildlife Art, p.297, 1996
MUSEUMS
The Corcoran Gallery of Art
Museums in America.
Bell Museum of Natural History
Denver Art Museum,
Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum
Houston Museum of Contemporary Art – Sotheby Parke-Bernet Galleries, 52116
The National Museum of Wildlife Art
Wildlife World Museum
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design
ART ORGANIZATION:
Society of Animal Artists
SIGNIFICANT EXHIBITIONS
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
California Institute of the Arts, Burbank, CA
Newport Harbor Art Museum, Balboa, CA
Sotheby Park-Bernet/ Houston Museum of Contemporary Art, Houston, TX
Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado (retrospective)
Wadsworth Atheneum, Harford, Conn.
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| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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