Discipline: Visual Art – painting

Thomas Lyon Mills

Discipline: Visual Art – painting
Region: Providence, RI
MacDowell Fellowships: 1992

For more than 30 years Thomas Lyon Mills has received rare access to paint in the Italian catacombs and numerous European pagan sites. From there, beginning with his onsite work and the influence of his dreams, he returns to his studio to work on pieces often for years. He is represented by the Ricco/Maresca Gallery in New York. His exhibition record includes the Luise Ross Gallery and the Drawing Center in New York; the Front Room Gallery in Brooklyn; the Rafius Fane Gallery in Boston; the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, MA; The Boston Athenaeum; the Cleveland Museum of Art; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; the Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR; and numerous venues in Europe including the American Academy in Rome and the residence of the United States Ambassador in Italy. He is Professor Emeritus of Drawing at the Rhode Island School of Design and has lectured and critiqued at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, returning each year to the Design Discovery Program; the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; the Cranbrook Academy of Art, MI; Parsons School of Design, NY; Auburn University, AL; and both Temple University’s and Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute’s programs in Rome. In 1996 he received RISD’s John R. Frazier Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Studios

Adams

Thomas Lyon Mills worked in the Adams studio.

Given to the MacDowell Association by Margaret Adams of Chicago, the half-timbered, stuccoed Adams Studio was designed by MacDowell Fellow and architect F. Tolles Chamberlin ca. 1914. Chamberlin was primarily a painter, but also provided designs for the Lodge and an early renovation of the main hall. The studio’s structural integrity was restored during a thorough renovation in…

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