Thomas Chimes American, 1921–2009
With a career spanning over five decades,
Untitled 1960s Ink on paper
Philadelphia in the 20th century. Chimes
Chimes remains one of the most singular and idiosyncratic figures to emerge from was born in Philadelphia. In 1939, the artist enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied with Daniel Garber and Francis Speight, but his studies
Untitled 1960s Ink on paper
were quickly interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Chimes served in the United States Army Air Force during the war, before returning to his studies in New York in 1946. Using the G.I. Bill, the artist studied
Untitled 1960s Ink on paper
philosophy at Columbia University, and painting and sculpture at the Art Students League, both in New York. As his career progressed he became increasingly hermetic.
Woodmere Art Museum: Gift of Dmirtri
His work is typically divided into four
and Sheila Chimes, 2011
periods of artistic production: his crucifixion paintings, metal boxes, panel portraits, and white paintings. Chimes’s work is included in the collections of such museums as the Corcoran Museum
Thomas Chimes assembled these three
of Art, Washington, D.C., the Musee National
drawings, uniting them as a trio in a single
d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris,
frame. An additional or otherwise unusual
the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
human eye is the focal point of each of
Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art, the
the three images. Chimes brought deep
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.,
philosophical thinking to his work as an artist,
the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine
and here he appears to turn the scrutinizing
Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and
gaze of his depicted subjects out onto the
the Smithsonian American Art Museum,
viewer, a metaphor for the penetrating
Washington, D.C., among others.
intensity of the artist.
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