Thomas Chimes was an influential painter and artist from Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

. His work is in some important public collections, including those of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...

 , the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

  in New York, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts .

Background

Thomas James Chimes was born to Greek immigrant parents in Philadelphia in 1921. In 1939 he became enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His studies were interrupted by the US involvement in World War 2, in which he joined the US Air Force. After World War 2, Thomas began studying again in New York at Columbia University for philosophy and at Art Students League for painting and sculpture. While there he painted several portraits that fell in line with the New York Trends of the time. However, he decided to move back to Philadelphia in 1953 and became a fellow of the National Endowment of the Arts and established his studio there. In Philadelphia, he would develop his own, more personal style.

Stylistic development

Throughout the decades Chimes would continue to reinvent his style.. The artist's work also shows a strong penchant for evocative images reflecting his interest in several of the great writers of the early to middle years of the twentieth century, including Alfred Jarry

Alfred Jarry

Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....

, Antonin Artaud

Antonin Artaud

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...

, and James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

. In particular, Jarry's concept of "pataphysics" informs the artist's work.

Early Works

He painted many Crucifixion

Crucifixion

Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead...

 paintings in the 1950's and early 1960's. In the mid 1960's he did a lot of metal box art work.

Recent Works

He worked on his most well known Panel Portraits between 1973 - 1978. It was a series of 48 portraits of famous people he admired. In the 1980's he began working on a series of white paintings characterized by being painted mostly white.

Solo Exhibitions

Chimes had numerous solo exhibitions. According to a 2007 Philadelphia Museum of Art press release, "By the early 1960s Chimes had enjoyed successful solo shows at the Avant-Garde and Bodley Galleries

Bodley Gallery

The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art gallery in New York City, USA, from the late 1940s through the early 1980s. The Bodley specialized in contemporary and modern art. David Mann was director of the gallery during its heyday and Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Braun The Bodley Gallery was a prominent art...

 in New York." Many important solo exhibitions followed, including "Thomas Chimes: A Retrospective Exhibition", at the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, in 1968; Tom Chimes, A Compendium: 1961-1986, at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia in 1986; and Thomas Chimes: Survey at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

's Alexander Onassis Center for Hellenic Studies in 1994. In 1975, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial

Whitney Biennial

The Whitney Biennial is a biennale exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932, the first biennial was in 1973...

, and in the following year he was represented in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's landmark exhibition Three Centuries of American Art.

A major recent retrospective was "Thomas Chimes: Adventures in 'Pataphysics" (February 27 - May 6, 2007) at The Philadelphia Museum of art. It was a full review of his artistic life which included over 100 of his pieces.

Museum collections

Works by Thomas Chimes are included in many major American museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

 in New York; the Wadsworth Atheneum

Wadsworth Atheneum

The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art museum in the United States, with significant holdings of French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as extensive holdings in early American furniture and...

 in Hartford, Connecticut; the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Smithsonian American Art Museum

The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...

 ; the Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix art museum

The Phoenix Art Museum is the Southwest United States' largest art museum for visual art. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western...

; the Delaware Art Museum

Delaware Art Museum

The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 works. The museum, was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artist Howard Pyle and is now celebrating its centennial...

; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the oldest art museum and school in the United States. The academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th and 20th century American paintings,...

; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...

. Additionally, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

, purchased a large painting by Chimes in 2004..

External links

http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/7aa/7aa110c.htm

http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/7aa/7aa110a.htm

http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/2007/107.html

http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/2007/107.html?page=2

http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/2007/107.html?page=3

http://www.artnet.com/artist/424325183/thomas-chimes.html

http://theartblog.org/2009/04/tom-chimes-died-monday/

http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300122176

http://designtaxi.com/news/8371/Thomas-Chimes-Adventures-in-Pataphysics/