Thom Shaw (1947-2010)
Thom Shaw, 2005 Duncanson Artist in Residence. Photo: Melvin Grier
Cincinnati based artist Thom Shaw was known for his large scale woodcuts and drawings depicting marginalized Black communities and the effects of systemic racism. He did not dilute his work, nor did he compromise, and because of that, created iconic imagery that was true to his vision.
Shaw attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati and earned an MFA in printmaking from Cranbrook Academy of Art, MI. He worked as Cincinnati Bell’s lead graphic designer until he left the corporate world in 1995 and began to pursue art full time. Full time work never hindered Shaw’s pursuit of attaining recognition in the art world. He worked tirelessly honing his craft and representing it personally. In the late 1960s and 70’s, Shaw was painting abstracts. Miller Gallery, Cincinnati, gave Shaw his first solo show in 1973. He continued to show his work in Washington DC, Detroit, and Chicago.
Shaw had turned to printmaking and drawing when in 1994 he was invited to be a part of Curator’s Choice: The Hale Woodruff Memorial Exhibition, held at the Studio Museum in Harlem. He exhibited a series of woodcuts, prints, and drawings from a series he called The Malcolm X Paradox. This series of works portrayed the co-opting of the “X” as a symbol of Black Power by young African American males.
Through them Shaw had carved a gang icon which represented the many ills of society, the broken down family, the loneliness of youth, the addiction to drugs as an escape, the resort to violence to prove oneself. His images were very graphic, showing killings, prostitution, drug dependence… Many, especially in the African-American community, criticized them as being derogatory to the black man, as confirming the mediatic notion that the latter was a menace to society. Shaw, however, disagreed: “My images specifically depict the negative effects society imparts on African American males with whom I identify,” he once told me; “I wanted to show the black man as a victim, a target of the many societal ills; I wanted to raise awareness about his condition.
