Hank Thomas is a contemporary African American visual artist and photographer whose primary interests are race, advertising and popular culture. He is a photo conceptual artist working with themes related to identity, history and popular culture. He received his BFA from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and his MFA in photography, along with an MA in visual criticism, from California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco.
Thomas has acted as a visiting professor at CCA and in the MFA prograrms at Maryland Institute College of Art and ICP/Bard and has lectured at Yale University, Princeton University, the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris. His work has been featured in several publications including 25 under 25: Up-and-Coming American Photographers (CDS, 2003), 30 Americans (RFC, 2008) as well as his monograph PItch Blackness (Aperture, 2008).
Thomas’ work is in numerous public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Brooklyn Museum and Museum of Modern Art. His collaborative projects have been featured at the Sundance Film Festival and installed publically at the Oakland International Airport, The Oakland Museum of California, San Francisco. He is an Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media, Columbia College Chicago Spring 2012 Fellow. Thomas is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City.
Images and bio via Hank Willis Thomas
