About Me...
I attended Boston"s School of the Museum of Fine Arts under a scholarship and the guidance of Lux Feinniger and Walter Pashko. The training in drawing, painting, anatomy , perspective, design, and art history that I received there provided me with the tools to express the unusual subject matter which I discovered years later as an antique dealer.
As a dealer, oriental rugs became one of my specialties, and I became especially attracted to the nomadic and quirky village weavings of the Middle East. I often thought that some examples could translate in their entirety , with their great colors and abstract geometric qualities, into paintings. Before the Reformation , fine carpets had been held in higher esteem than painting, and many artists used them in their compositions.. Many designs of rugs to this day are identified by the artists who depicted them: Holbein, Bellini, Lotto, and Memling, for example.
But why not make an oriental carpet the subject itself? This was the challenge that became my work as an artist and has opened a new world of people and cultures. As a member of the New England Rug Society, one of the largest and most active groups of collectors and scholars in the world, I had exposure to some of the finest private and museum collections. Many of these examples were the inspiration for my paintings which are now themselves in museums and private collections.
Thomas Stocker