Lionel Thomas

Lionel Thomas (April03, 1915 May06, 2005) was a painter, muralist, designer, sculptor, printmaker and educator. He was best known for the public artworks he, often with his wife Patricia (née Simmons), created for architecture in Vancouver and elsewhere. He taught for almost four decades at two art schools, first at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) and then at the University of British Columbia.

Career Thomas was born in Toronto, Ontario. He studied at several different art schools, among them the Ontario College of Art (1936–37). Having met his wife in Toronto, they moved to Vancouver in 1940 where he taught at the Vancouver School of Art (now Emily Carr University of Art and Design) (1944–1950).

He exhibited nationally and internationally during the 1940s-1970s including at the Seattle Art Museum (1943 and 1952), the Vancouver Art Gallery, Hart House, University of Toronto (1950), the National Gallery of Canada (1953), in the São Paulo Biennial (1954), in New Delhi, India, (1957)

Commissions Water Screen (1968), Lighting Fixtures (1968), The Big Tree (1968) [carved entrance doors], all at the Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, BC;

Selected public collections National Gallery of Canada; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, BC; Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, UBC; Simon Fraser University (Burnaby); Vancouver Art Gallery; University of Victoria; West Vancouver Museum;

Memberships Canadian Group of Painters; B.C. Society of Fine Arts (Member 1946–1957); Federation of Canadian Artists (Founding Member 1941); Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (ARCA 1960);

Selected awards 1949, Emily Carr Trust Fund, Scholarship; 1952, Pacific Northwest Artists Exhibition Award, Seattle, WA, USA; 1956, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, Gold Medal; 1981, Elected member of the Accademia Italia degli Arti e del Lavoro, Parma, Italy;