Thomas Boutis (1922 – 2018) was an American artist, known as an abstract expressionist with a love of color.[1] [2] [3] He primarily worked in painting, drawing, collage , watercolor, and printmaking.
Tom Boutis was born in 1922 in New York City to parents from Kastoria , Greece .[4] [5] He worked as a Federal Art Project artist.[where? ] [when? ] Boutis was drafted by the United States Army in 1943.[4] Boutis attended Cooper Union and graduated in 1948.[4] [6] He was a friend of Vincent DaCosta Smith and in the early 1950s Boutis influenced Smith's early career as an artist.[7] His first solo art show was in January 1955 at Zabriskie Gallery in New York City.[4] [8]
In the 1950s, with artists from the E 10th Street co-op movement , he established the Area Gallery in New York City which was in operation from 1958 until 1965.[5] The original members of Area Gallery were Tom Boutis, alongside artists John Ireland Collins, Charles Steven DuBack , Joe Fiore, Bernard Langlais, Ed Moses , Daphne Mumford, and Paul Yakovenko.[5] Alongside many of the artist from Area Gallery, Boutis was a founding member of the artist-run Landmark Gallery at 469 Broome Street in SoHo ,[9] in operation from 1972 until 1982.
Boutis was a National Academician and member of the National Academy of Design , joining in 1995.[10] [11]
Boutis died on October 29, 2018, at the age of 96.[4]
His work is included in many public museum collections, including Art Institute of Chicago ,[12] the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum archives,[13] the Smithsonian Archives of American Art ,[14] among others.
^ Ashton, Dore (1959-04-16). "Art: Looking Downtown; Shows by Morton Lucks, Tom Boutis and Pat Passlof Among Those on Review" . The New York Times . Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
^ Raynor, Vivien (1978-05-12). "Art: Al Held Puts Op In a Hall of Mirrors" . The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
^ "Paintings and Monoprints on Display at Pine Library" . Newspapers.com . Shopper News from Paramus, New Jersey. April 24, 1985. p. 43. Retrieved 2020-05-14 .
^ a b c d e "Tom Boutis" . Legacy.com . The New York Times. 2018-12-16. Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
^ a b c "A Finding Aid to the Area Gallery Records, 1958-1977, bulk 1959-1964, in the Archives of American Art" . Smithsonian Online Virtual Archives, Archives of American Art . Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
^ Lynch, Mary (2018). "2018 In Memoriam" . Cooper Union Alumni . Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
^ Patton, Sharon (1990). Vincent D. Smith: Riding on a Blue Note:Monoprints and Works on Paper on Jazz Themes (exhibition catalogue). New York City, NY: Louis Abrons Arts Center, Henry Street Settlement. pp. 1970–1972.
^ Zabriskie: Fifty Years . New York City, NY: Ruder Finn Press. 2004. p. 82. ISBN 9781932646153 .
^ Shkuda, Aaron (2016). The Lofts of SoHo: Gentrification, Art, and Industry in New York, 1950–1980 . Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. p. 122. ISBN 9780226334189 .
^ Price, Marshall N. (2007). The Abstract Impulse: Fifty Years of Abstraction at the National Academy, 1956-2006 . Hudson Hills. pp. 22–23. ISBN 9781887149174 .
^ "National Academicians" . National Academy of Design . Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
^ "Tom Boutis" . The Art Institute of Chicago . Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
^ "Artist files, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Archives" . Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Library Department . 2016-12-13. Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
^ "Tom Boutis papers, 1951-1979" . Archives of American Art, Smithsonian . Retrieved 2020-05-13 .
Yale, Epstein (1980). "Tom Boutis" . Arts Magazine . Vol. 54. pp. 197–198.