Acclaimed American painter Thomas Blackshear has dedicated much of his storied career to capturing iconographic images from the frontier. Portraits of the West, his first solo museum exhibition, showcases new portraits of an often-overlooked icon of the West: the Black cowboy. With unmatched precision and classical technique, Blackshear renders his subjects in heroic realism, imbuing them with the breath of life, producing portraits that are felt as well as seen.

 

Born in Waco, Texas, Thomas Blackshear is an illustrator and painter known for representations of the American West. After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1977, Blackshear embarked on a career as a freelance illustrator that has seen him work for clients such as Disney, Lucasfilm, National Geographic, and the U.S. Post Office, for which he has designed over 30 stamps.

 

Blackshear is a Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame artist. His paintings are displayed at the Museum of Biblical Art in Dallas, Texas, the Booth Western Art Museum in Cartersville, Georgia, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

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