Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon Portland Community College

Thomas Barron

Thomas Barron (1949-) is a painter active in Boston, Massachusetts.  After a period of study of Art History at Harvard, Barron elected to leave the University to study privately with Jason Berger (whose work is also in the Rock Creek Collection) as well as Berger’s wife, the painter Marilyn Powers (1925-1976).  Barron, Berger, Powers and other artists such as Arthur Yanoff and Paul Shapiro exhibited together under the group name “Direct Vision” with regular group shows which emphasized lively paintings from observation with a fresh, spontaneous approach. Their work inspired many young artists at a time of artistic confusion and corporate uniformity to embrace the true, the impulsive, the messy and the grand.

Barron’s work is in many public collections in Massachusetts including the Art Complex Museum (Duxbury), Babson College (Wellesley), Beth Israel Hospital (Boston),  Museum of Fine Arts/Hines Contemporary Art Collection (Boston) and the Rose Art Museum (Watham). His work can also be found in Mills College (Oakland, CA) and Le Centre D’Art, Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada, where Barron was selected as one of 16 painters in a residency program by Louvre curator and art historian Rene Huyghe, art critic Clement Greenberg,  and art historian and critic Karen Wilkin. Barron’s work is included in Abstract Painting – Concepts and Techniques by Vicky Perry, Watson-Guptill Publications (2005).